{"id":304444,"date":"2025-10-20T16:27:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldcargonews.com\/?p=87982"},"modified":"2025-10-20T16:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:27:58","slug":"helrom-continues-to-roll-on-rails-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=304444","title":{"rendered":"Helrom continues to roll on rails"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September, Bruno Weissman, the sales director for Helrom, posted a video. He\u2019s always posting videos of the company\u2019s unique road-to-rail trains, carrying trailers around Europe. This video, however, was uploaded at an important juncture for Helrom as a business.<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The images show a batch of 34 non-craneable semi-trailers, fresh out of the KRONE Trailer plant at Werlte in Lower Saxony, on their rail-mounted way to Gr\u00fcnheide in Brandenburg. 500 kilometres and just one kilometre on the road, boasts Helrom, thanks to their unique swing body rail car. That optimism contrasts with events earlier this year, where the wheels appeared to have come off Helrom, and it was heading for financial derailment. What has gone so horribly wrong since those promising months?<\/p>\n

In May, Helrom was riding the crest of a wave. A Green Loan for \u20ac32.9m was secured from Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale and Deutsche Leasing Finance to purchase around 120 additional wagons, supporting six more train sets. The concept of horizontal loading was on a vertical trajectory. However, that up like a rocket trajectory came crashing down like a stick in July.<\/p>\n

That month, Helrom filed for \u201cpreliminary insolvency proceedings\u201d<\/a>, citing an unsuccessful funding round. The company said it was restructuring and discontinuing one route that was \u201cstill in ramp-up\u201d and had not reached sustainable \u00adutilisation.<\/p>\n

Seeking a sustainable track<\/h2>\n

Since then, though, the company has been confidently promoting its services, most recently showing off its run across Germany for KRONE. In August, the insolvency practitioners said Helrom had a robust business model, and their job was to ensure that it continued in operation. Their focus is on finding a financially sustainable solution for the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

On the face of it, Helrom\u2019s unique offer makes a compelling case. Its rail cars carry all the infrastructure required to load road trailers directly onto trains, without any site infrastructure, other than a length of hard standing adjacent to the rails. Yet, getting the message across and persuading road hauliers has perhaps grown at a slower rate than the company\u2019s ambitions.<\/p>\n

Track record<\/h2>\n

Since its founding in 2018, Helrom has expanded its operations, tripling its revenue to \u20ac23 million by 2024. The company operates six shuttle services connecting Germany with Austria and Italy. In August, Helrom launched a new connection between D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany, and Gy\u0151r, Hungary. The service runs five times weekly. The company says that as of 30 September, another route has begun, linking D\u00fcsseldorf with Katowice in Poland. They say it will \u201cramp-up\u201d to six weekly return workings.<\/p>\n

The message is that Helrom has built a successful operational model for trailer-on-railcar services. \u201c\u00adDespite the ongoing preliminary insolvency proceedings and the search for new investors, Helrom continues to win new customers, an unusual situation that underlines the company\u2019s operational strength and the trust it enjoys among shippers,\u201d said a \u00adspokesperson.<\/p>\n

Seeking a backer<\/h2>\n

However, there is still jeopardy for the company. While it continues to operate successfully, PwC is engaged to conduct an investor search<\/a>. Bottom line is that the company needs a new owner with pockets deep enough to make its operations catch up with its ambitions.<\/p>\n

That might not be easy in the current commercial environment. Capital and investment are heavily \u00adconcentrated on Artificial Intelligence (AI) compared to traditional engineering products like rail cars and modal shift.<\/p>\n

A creditors’ committee is expecting that process to conclude by the end of this month. Roman Noack, the company\u2019s chief executive, has said that the company is definitely at the beginning of its journey. He said they are focusing on their strengths and making their business model fit for the future.<\/p>\n

*This story first appeared in the October print issue of WorldCargo News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruno Weissman, the sales director for Helrom, has posted a video. It was uploaded at an important juncture for Helrom as a business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18495,72,15261,7365],"tags":[12159],"class_list":["post-304444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruno-weissman","category-business","category-from-the-magazine","category-helrom","tag-world-cargo-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304447,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304444\/revisions\/304447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}