Brado and Rumo make the first container trip on the North-South Railway

With 58 Brado wagons pulled by Rumo locomotives, the first North-South Railway train bound for Anápolis (GO) arrived this week in the city of Goiás. Carried out during commissioning (test), the 1.511 km journey started in Cubatão (SP), on the Malha Paulista, lasted three days. The route marks the resumption of a project that began 40 years ago and in 2023 had its structure 100% completed.

In the first train, 58 cars carried 112 40-foot containers, 32 of them loaded with inputs for industry and agricultural pesticides from China, the United States and Europe. The remaining 80 remained empty to be sent to export customers – in the Anápolis-Santos flow – and to form a buffer (deposit) at the Anápolis Dry Port. The buffer is important to secure assets for upcoming operations.

“This is a historic moment for Brazilian infrastructure, a long-awaited route that will boost the region’s growth. It is a pride to participate in this unique moment, offering a multimodal container solution that makes it possible to transport the most diverse types of cargo by rail”, says Marcelo Saraiva, CEO of Brado.

According to Guilherme Penin, vice-president of Expansion and Regulation at Rumo, the flow of containers by rail brings new economic prospects to the regions that are now served by this service. “The railway is a driver of development. The arrival of the tracks in the main agricultural and industrial centers of Goiás and Tocantins promotes job creation and enhances the economic activities of the municipalities”, he highlights.

The operations director of the Porto Seco Centro-Oeste Group, Everaldo Fiatkoski, highlights the potential of Porto Seco de Anápolis as the only container terminal in the state. “The new Porto Seco Container Terminal is the result of the expertise acquired over the last 20 years, expanding logistics capacity, reducing operational costs and, as a consequence, attracting new interested parties in multimodality between highways and railways”, says Fiatkoski.

The first return trip will take cotton lint from the harvest that begins in Bahia to the Port of Santos for export. Brado's multimodal operation combines the movement of cargo by rail over long distances and by highway over short distances. Unlike “traditional” wagons, containers allow diversifying service by accommodating different loads, from agricultural to industrialized products.

New market

From Porto Seco Centro-Oeste, in Anápolis, the cotton, mining, steel and food export markets, including sugar, soybean meal and grains in containers, as well as beef proteins will be served by rail through container operations reefer (refrigerated). Currently, these markets already move around 45 thousand containers per year and more than 65% are destined for the Port of Santos.

On the opposite route, the import markets for inputs that supply industries and agribusiness in the state of Goiás will be captured, in addition to consumer goods that will be distributed to the populations of Goiás, Distrito Federal, southern Tocantins and Minas Gerais.

Imports include agrochemicals, machine parts, automotive parts, equipment and plastics. These markets move more than 16,5 containers per year.

One of the great advantages of the multimodal solution is sustainability. For this new Goiás route, Brado projects an avoided emission of 160 thousand tons of CO2 over the next 5 years. This is equivalent to the emission of more than 34,5 vehicles. 1,1 million trees would be needed to fully absorb this volume.

Another value of the operation is road safety, by reducing the distances traveled by trucks. For truck drivers, there is a gain in quality of life, as they travel shorter distances, which also reduces the number of accidents on the roads. Cargo gains security in the solution with the railway section, with a reduction in transport losses, and theft and theft. Multimodal transport also adds values ​​of regularity, operational efficiency and competitiveness, especially in cases of long distances.

Big project

Since taking over the Central Network concession, Rumo has already invested R＄4 billion in infrastructure works, terminals and rolling stock on the central and southern branches of the North-South Railway. And it generated 5 jobs for the execution of works and operation at the terminals.

The North-South Railway has a total length of 1.527 km between Estrela D´Oeste (SP) and Porto Nacional (TO). It passes through 4 of the 5 regions of Brazil (Central-West, North, Southeast and Northeast – the latter, in a section under VLI concession). In 4 years, the concessionaire opened 3 terminals; built 4 bridges between Goiás, São Paulo and Minas Gerais; in addition to a connecting yard between the Malhas Central and Paulista in the city of Estrela D'Oeste, forming a corridor to the Port of Santos (SP), the main port hub in South America and which concentrates the export of agricultural commodities to the world.

In July this year, Cultivar announced the start of operations on the railway. Check out:

• Brado will start operating container trains on the North-South Railway