Road and rail freight across India
Factory collection, ICD haulage and long-haul container movement, planned backwards from the vessel cut-off rather than forwards from the loading date.
The first and last hundred kilometres cause more missed sailings than the ocean leg ever does. Road and rail are quoted and scheduled here as part of the shipment, not bolted on afterwards by a separate transporter with a separate phone number.
Road
Trailer and container haulage across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and the NCR, including 20ft, 40ft, low-bed and semi-low-bed equipment for over-dimensional loads. Factory stuffing under customs supervision where the commodity allows it, which removes a handling and a CFS charge.
Rail
Container movement by block train on the western dedicated freight corridor between the northern ICDs and the Gujarat ports. On the Delhi–Mundra and Delhi–Nhava Sheva lanes, rail is usually cheaper and more predictable than road, and it is not affected by the seasonal trucking crunch around the festival season.
Inland container depots
Sabarmati and Khodiyar for Ahmedabad and North Gujarat. Tughlakabad and Dadri for the NCR catchment. Clearing at an inland depot rather than at the port moves the paperwork away from the gateway congestion and often saves a day.
Container transport by road, and when rail is the better answer
Almost every container starts and ends its journey on a trailer. From the Gujarat clusters — Morbi, Rajkot, Ankleshwar, Vapi, Surat — Mundra and Pipavav are inside a day's run, and a single road move from factory to port is usually both cheapest and fastest. We plan the stuff to the Indian road payload limit rather than the container's rated capacity, because a container stopped at a weighbridge is a far more expensive problem than a slightly lighter load.
Rail earns its place on the long inland legs. Block trains on the western dedicated freight corridor between the northern ICDs and the Gujarat ports take the movement off congested highway sections and hold a schedule that road cannot promise in monsoon or during festival weeks. For Delhi NCR, Ludhiana, Jaipur and Kanpur cargo, rail to Mundra is usually the more predictable leg even when it is not the fastest on paper.
The choice is rarely purely about cost. It is about which leg has slack in it. If the vessel cut-off is four days out, rail is the safer plan; if it is two, road is the only honest answer, and we will say so rather than book you onto a train that arrives after the ship has sailed.
Road and rail — common questions
Is rail cheaper than road for containers in India?
On long hauls above roughly 700 kilometres, usually yes, and the transit is more predictable. Below that, road is normally faster and cheaper once the double handling at each rail terminal is counted.
What is factory stuffing and when is it allowed?
Stuffing the container at your premises under self-sealing or customs supervision, rather than at a container freight station. It is permitted for most manufacturer-exporters and saves a handling, a transport leg and the CFS charge.
How far ahead should road transport be booked?
Two to three working days on normal lanes. Longer around Diwali and the March financial year end, when trailer availability in Gujarat tightens sharply.
Ready when you are
Send us a lane and roughly what is moving. You will have a firm all-in figure inside a working day.