June 16 - Panprojects, the projects division of the global forwarder Panalpina Group, has been involved in its first shipment of railway rolling stock to India that will power a massive expansion of the Delhi metro.
The client, Bombardier, is supplying a total of 424 carriages from its German manufacturing site to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), the majority in time for the inauguration of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010.
According to Michael Brose, project business development manager of Panprojects, a significant share of the contract involves moving unassembled rolling stock for assembly in India.
He says: "Only 36 complete units are to be shipped from Germany before the end of June, 2009. All the other rolling stock will be delivered as components for assembly at Bombardier's workshop at Vadodara, India from 2009 to 2012."
Panalpina India, as the principal contractor, is responsible for providing end-to-end logistics solutions and services, both onshore and offshore, to Bombardier with a part of the onshore services being subcontracted to Allcargo Global Logistics.
Eight coaches, needed for testing by DMRC, have already been airlifted by Panprojects on a specially chartered AN-124 aircraft from Germany to New Delhi in February and May. Furthermore, 12 more coaches have arrived, via Hamburg, at Mundra Port as complete built units (CBUs).
