“The capacity has increased many times over. Another big benefit is that the loading staff sees at once if the wagon is overloaded”, says Lothar Krebs, Deputy Sales Director of TRANSWAGGON in Hamburg when he is talking about the automated load monitoring system of PJM. Recently, the last of 512 wagons in total was equipped with the automated system. The wagons are in use by Mercer Holz which is one of the largest purchasers in Europe. More than 3.5 million tons of logs, chips and lumber are transported by rail every year.

Wood can have weight differences of up to 50% due to differences in density and moisture content which is a big uncertainty factor in loading the wagons. “We need reliable, stable monitoring of the loading process to protect against overlading of the wagons”, explains Jürgen Köhler, Division Manager for Rail and Ship Logistics at Mercer Holz. The load monitoring system meets all these demands: The system analyses the load and the load distribution during the loading process. Signal lamp indicate as soon as the maximum load capacity is reached. Further benefits:  real-time, precise and reliable data transfer and lists of train composition are provided per app, scan, NFC or manual input. “Mercer Holz pushes efficiency exemplarily and its wagon capacity is very high”, says PJM CEO Günter Petschnig. “By increasing the system efficiency and its safety significantly, the automated load monitoring system ensures a quick ROI.”

More information on the load monitoring system and its benefits: 

https://pjm.co.at/en/waggontracker/

Credit: TRANSWAGGON