GatewayRail recently achieved yet another milestone by starting a weekly dedicated train service, for Williams Sonoma, from its ICD Faridabad to Pipavav Port. The first train was flagged off on February 12, 2018. It’s a collaborative effort between GatewayRail, Maersk Line and Damco (Maersk T&L team) and APM Terminals Pipavav towards a Scheduled Service Regime. There is a long-standing demand of the trade for transit assurance by intermodal operators. However, at present, Indian Railways, the primary service provider, does not give any transit time guarantees, resulting in uncertainty about shipment schedules.
At a ceremony organised by GatewayRail at their Faridabad Inter-Modal Terminal, the train carrying export laden containers was flagged off by Col. Vijay Malhotra, Director – Operations, Williams Sonoma. The event was hosted by Mr Ashish Jhunjhunwala, the Head of ICD Faridabad of GatewayRail. Capt. Shantanu Bhattacharya, Mr Lalit Lahori, Mr Aditya Gupta and Ms Samta Kamra of GatewayRail were also present.
The event was also graced by Mr Rajesh Gupta, Superintendent of Customs, and Mr Ajish Babu, Mr Mukul Jain, Mr Puneet Gupta and Mr Sumanta Naskar of Damco.
Mr Jaibhaskar Kothandaraman and Mr Deepak Suri of Maersk Line, and Mr Jitender Monga and Mr Shailesh Modha of APM Terminals Pipavav were also present at the flagging off ceremony.
