Transit
Door-ready adds half the gap between departures — the average wait if your cargo becomes ready at a random moment. On a 21-a-week service that is 0.2 days, and it is the figure a road-versus-rail comparison usually leaves out.
Legs and handovers
A single through leg — no gauge break and no operator handover en route.
- 1 Trieste Campo Marzio → Duisburg Intermodal TerminalMetrans · Standard (1435 mm) · 1,150 km · 2 d
Track gauge and borders
The spacing between the rails — whether the wheels can run through, or the load has to change trains.
- Countries crossed
- IT → AT → DE
- Gauge changes
- None — through running
- Origin gauge
- Standard (1435 mm)
- Destination gauge
- Standard (1435 mm)
Loading gauge clearance
The height and width of tunnels and bridges — whether the load fits through. A different constraint from track gauge above: this corridor can have no gauge break at all and still refuse a high-cube container.
Set by IT, the narrowest network on the route. One restrictive tunnel anywhere caps the whole journey regardless of how generous the rest is. The profile most western European freight is planned against. Comfortable for high-cube containers on standard wagons.
- 40ft standard (8'6") on a container flat
- Clears +574 mm
- High-cube (9'6") on a container flat
- Clears +269 mm
- Swap body on a container flat
- Clears +495 mm
- P400 semi-trailer on a pocket wagon
- Clears +50 mm
Profiles are the published maxima for each network's core freight routes. Individual lines differ in both directions, so a load within 50 mm of the limit needs the operator to confirm the specific path. Compare wagon deck heights →
Emissions
GLEC v3 planning estimate — not a regulatory declaration. Model your own payload with the transit calculator.
The Adriatic shortcut: Asian cargo discharged at Trieste reaches the Ruhr several days sooner than via the North Sea.