Ranks among the top positions.

Endless rows of wagons move at walking pace across the Bremen plant site. On board: brand-new C-Class models, neatly lined up and secured against transport damage. Their initial destination is a handover point at the plant exit, where a mainline locomotive takes over the wagons and transfers them to Bremerhaven. From there the cars begin a sea voyage to many regions around the world.

The Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen is one of the largest passenger car manufacturing facilities in Germany. Rail is an important transport route – especially exports destined for overseas take this route. Metal scrap generated in the plant during the pressing of body panels is also transported away by rail wagons.

For the in-plant shunting operations with the heavy wagons, the Mercedes‑Benz plant in Bremen relies on five road-rail Unimog. Thanks to hydraulically lowerable rail guides, they can be used on both rails and roads.

And that pays off in more ways than one, says Ralf Menger, foreman of the plant transport/shunting team. The versatile machines switch quickly and save time when moving between different work sites within the plant, and they can easily negotiate the tight curve radii on site. This saves costly investment in new track infrastructure that would be required for operating conventional shunting locomotives.

Two of the Unimog at the Bremen car plant already come from the latest generation of the proven commercial vehicle, model U 423. Good for the budget: they consume significantly less fuel in operation than comparable shunting locomotives. And thanks to the latest Euro VI drive system technology, they make an important contribution to emissions reduction on the plant site – good for the environment.

The Unimog U 423 with their 170 kW (231 hp) 4‑cylinder engines have to pull towed weights of up to 600 t in daily shunting operations. The Unimog's torque converter clutch, which is available ex works, ensures wear-free moving off and increased starting torque.

And that also works reliably in bad weather and on wet rails. Thanks to all-wheel drive and differential locks, as well as the higher permissible gross vehicle weight of the new Unimog generation, traction is retained even on slippery rails – an important safety factor, especially when braking.

The equipment of the two Unimog U 423 includes a well-thought-out railway-technical fitment by the specialised bodybuilders Zagro and Zwiehoff. Thus the two powerful shunting experts have a wagon braking system for 800 t and coupling bars at the front and rear. A practical radio remote control enables precise shunting manoeuvres, while the driver can keep an eye on the wagons from outside the vehicle.

For in-plant use, the Unimog have rail approval in accordance with BOA (construction and operating regulations for connecting railways). As a flexible alternative to shunting locomotives, the 2-way Unimog have become indispensable at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen. They stand out for their quick changeover from rail to road, economical operation and easy integration into the existing infrastructure. Ralf Menger sums up that a comparatively inflexible locomotive would simply no longer be able to cope with the workload on the existing rail infrastructure. He is all the more pleased about the commercial vehicle support from in-house production. This ensures that many more new cars from Bremen reliably reach Mercedes-Benz customers around the world.

More than 12,500 Mercedes‑Benz employees currently produce ten passenger car models at the Bremen site, including the C‑Class, GLC, SLC and the SL. In 2017 more than 420,000 vehicles rolled off the production lines. This means that the site is one of the largest Mercedes‑Benz passenger car plants.

The Bremen site is also well equipped for the future: from 2019 the first electric vehicle of the new EQ product brand will be built there. By the end of the decade all newly developed intelligent drives will be built in Bremen – from the conventional combustion engine to plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.