Powerhouse on rails.

Schweinfurt – the town of 54,000 in Lower Franconia has been known for generations as the European centre of the rolling bearing industry. In heavy industry, several tens of thousands of employees work here. ZF, SKF and Schaeffler are the main employers in the town. Everything here revolves around mobility and movement. But there is another place in Schweinfurt where a great deal is moved — by only eight employees: the port.

Since 1963 the port has been the interface between the Main-Danube Canal, the road and the rail. Experts call that "trimodal". The port crew handles between 280 and 320 ships annually. On its own rail network, which is over five kilometres long, around 8,000 freight wagons are loaded and unloaded each year. The men at the port, which is operated by Stadtwerke Schweinfurt, mainly handle coal, gravel, scrap, grain and fertiliser.

Indispensable for this is the road-rail Unimog U 423 for shunting. The powerhouse, converted by G. Zwiehoff GmbH, is equipped with the usual rail guidance, a wagon braking system and a radio remote control. It allows the driver to operate the combination solely from the running board. Time-consuming climbing in and out is eliminated, so coupling and uncoupling can be carried out much more quickly and the brake hoses can also be connected to each other.

The torque converter clutch is used to increase starting torque for moving heavy loads of up to 1,000 tonnes on rails. With the Hiab loading crane, the port cargo‑handling crew are quick and flexible when, for example, heavy gearboxes need to be replaced on one of the three harbour cranes at the quayside. "The Unimog is a reliable manoeuvring vehicle for us and proves its worth in daily operation," says port manager Rainer Vierheilig.

Off the rails, back onto the rails – you couldn't get more flexibility. A conventional shunting locomotive looks on enviously. And when there's sometimes more shunting to be done than usual, the people of Schweinfurt pull their well-maintained pride and joy out of the garage for reinforcement: a 2-way U 900 from 1974.