Continental European Railway Operations

[beaulieu]

I thought I would profile one of the largest Intermodal Operators (IM) in Europe. Hupac Ltd. is a Swiss Company based in Chiasso specializing in transalpine intermodal service. The closest US equivilent would be Pacer Stacktrain. Hupac, a contraction of Huckepack (German for Piggyback) operates Intermodal terminals in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, and it contracts for capacity at other terminals, in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, and Poland. It is owned by Logistics Companies (72%) and National Railways (28%), it is the only IM operator not strongly tied to one shipper or a railway company. In Europe Hupac contracts with the railways to move its trains, and provide the locomotive and driver (one man operation except in Italy). It has its own railcars which are leased from companies like VTG, AAE, and GE Railcar Leasing. Hupac is solely responsible for sales of space. It pays a fixed amount to the railway operators whether the train is full or empty. To help with doing this, its sells some of this space to other IMs like Kombiverkehr, and Cemat. In addition to inland transportation it also moves Maritime containers from the various terminals at Rotterdam, Antwerp, Zeebrugge, and to a lesser extent in Hamburg. All of their contracts now have some degree of performance specified, and since the summer of 2005, one railway operator is responsible for operation of the train from begining to end. Some train operations do require more than one operator, but one is the prime contractor and they are soley responsible for the train. Unlike in North America all terminals close down sometime Saturday afternoon and do not reopen until the early hours of Monday morning. This does not include the Port terminals. Hupac operates just under 90 trains per week. Largest traffic flows are from various points in Northern Europe, down the Rhein Corridor, entering Switzerland at Basle, thence over the Gotthard, and finally either via Luino or Chiasso to terminals in Northern Italy. Hupac's largest terminal is located at Busto Arzizio just 40 or kilometers WNW of Milan. It has 11 gantry cranes and has a capacity of over 240,000 lifts per year.
The largest terminal on the North End is the Eifeltor terminal SW of Cologne, which is owned by Kombiverkehr. Inspite of Hupac being the tenent rather than the landlord they are the largest user of the facility. Hupac also operates 6 Rolling Highway trains per day over the Gotthard route from Basle and Schaffhausen on the north to Lugano on the south, these trains offer drive on and drive off ability for semi-trucks allowing truck drivers to rest while the train is moving and complying with hours of driving regulations. Hupac is also the major shareholder in RailAlpin AG which provides a similar RoLa service over the Lotschberg/Simplon route between Freiburg, Germany and Domodossola, Italy.
Comparing 2005 versus 2004 traffic in regular intermodal (called Unaccompanied Combinied Transport or UCT) increased by 17.2 % while the Rolling Highway service decreased by 6.6 %, note the Rolling Highway figures do not include those of RailAlpin AG which showed an increase. Financial results were not so good although Hupac did manage to show a small profit of 6.5 million Swiss Francs on Revenues of 406 million Swiss Francs.

[Anonymous]

Beaulieu - are you a Brit?

It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.

 

[beaulieu]

Beaulieu - are you a Brit?

It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.

No, born and live in the North Central part of the US. I am a voracious reader. I have looked at everything on the EU, UIC, CER, UIRR, ERFA, ERCIP, RFG, FTA, BAV, FOT, UVEK, ARE, and CEMT, along with the various company websites. I have read through various studies at Leeds University, St. Gallens University, and the Universities at Brugge and Louvain in Belgium, that I discovered though the bibliographies on the earlier websites. I have translation software for French, Italian and Dutch, I can speak or at least read German. I subscribe to several magazines, both fan and professional, and am expanding my library. And I read the online versions of several European Transportation Daily newspapers.

[owlsroost]

I think you will see things change in the next few years as companies in Europe no longer need to be able to interchange cars. Each will then be able to go their own way, and the use of buffers will end. Already the heavy Iron Ore trains from Rotterdam to the Saar are equipped with autocouplers. Other trains like container trains will follow. Cars used in carload service will be last.

Some (maybe all) of  new freight cars EWS has acquired in UK are fitted with US-style couplers (known as 'Buckeye' here), and the majority of the EWS loco fleet is equiped with both types of coupling gear. Iron ore trains in the UK have been fitted with AAR-type rotating couplers (to allow rotary dumping without uncoupling cars) since the late 1970's. Also, most express passenger rolling stock built in the UK since the mid-1950's has been fitted with Buckeye or other types of automatic centre couplers.

If I remember correctly, there were moves in the 1970's to establish a standard European (UIC) automatic coupler, but it never really got anywhere as far as I know.

Tony

[Murphy Siding]

Beaulieu - are you a Brit?

It seems that you are very clued up on chuffer ops over here (en europe as well); thats all.

 

     I'd call him an honorary Brit.

[MStLfan]

Well, I'm back from my holiday to Helgoland.

After acquiring a lot of books and photographs and then a cd with 2200 old photographs some questions are answered and there is a new one.

There was indeed a large network of narrow gauge lines, probably 2 gauges and on both Helgoland itself and later on its companion, Dune, when it was enlarged to house an airfield.

At least one steam engine was used. As were diesels on construction work around the islands.

The new mystery is a photograph of an electric locomotive with a short train next to the lower powerhouse taken in 1921 (it says so in a book). It looks like a 2 axle AEG (sloping hoods and what looks to be a high cab, no doubt due to the shortness of the hoods). Anyone with an AEG workslist?

There was a tunnel with a cable car to haul supplies. It was used again in Hitlers time but got blown up like the rest of the southern tip of the island (and that explosion left a mighty big hole...).

Interestingly, when the Germans rebuild the island after they got it back in 1952 they build a new, short tunnel at the upper end of the location of the original. {edit: they build a new cable car which used the tunnel at hte upper end. Halfway and out in the open was a passing place. It is very visible in some old photographs. The lower end isn't.} On the upland side there are some remains of tracks in the concrete. This tunnel is now used by the electric cars used to supply the businesses and hotels on the upland.

Other remains of tracks can be found at the end of the moles of the southern harbour.

The track on the ostmole (eastern breakwater) is accesible. I played archeologist and took a few pieces of the track. Under the influence of salt water it is falling into pieces that split lengthwise from the track.

The westmole is new after a storm broke it and from the air a few pieces of narrow gauge and crane track could be seen on what remains of the original westmole.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

 

 

[martin.knoepfel]

owlsroost is right.

The so called Eurocoupler would have been fully automatic, i.e. when you couple a car, the air-lines will couple too. The French State Railway bowed out of the projects. Rumors said, because to little French technology was used.

The Swiss Federal Railways ordered a couple of intercity-cars with Eurocouplers. They still run, but only in fixed consists. The rain with for-axle clarss-421 electric engines. Now, the end-cars of each consist have conventional hook-and-chain-couplers an can be coupled to different engines. Model railroaders should try Liliput.

The German Federal Railways ordered some six-axle ore  or coal (IIRC: ore) cars. They ran to the steel-mill at Salzgitter with trains of more than 4000 metric tons. This was much too heavy for the conventional couplers. These cars are still in service: for model railroaders, at least in HO there is a model by Roc.

The Swedish-Norwegian ore-railroad from the mining-town of Kiruna to Narvik (Norway) or Lulea (Sweden) runs with US-stile couplers. I don't know the maximum weight of the trains, but it might exceed 4000 tons. They used electric engines with rods an an 1D + D + D1, i.e. 12 driving axles in which was practically three engines coupled permanently.

The former Soviet union has US-stile couplers to. They converted in the 20s or 30s of the last century.

[MStLfan]

The ore trains running from the port of Rotterdam to the steel mill at Dillingen (Saarland) Germany can weigh up to 5400 tons. They use 6 axle cars with automatic couplers (not air, that is still hand coupled). At each end there is a special car since the locomotives used (3 1600 hp class 6400 diesels or a 1600 class electric with help from 6400 class diesels) don't have these couplers. These cars come of at Venlo or Emmerich (border stations and change of overhead voltages. The German locomotives had the automatic couplers. At least the older class used, don't know about the newer ones.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[beaulieu]

The ore trains running from the port of Rotterdam to the steel mill at Dillingen (Saarland) Germany can weigh up to 5400 tons. They use 6 axle cars with automatic couplers (not air, that is still hand coupled). At each end there is a special car since the locomotives used (3 1600 hp class 6400 diesels or a 1600 class electric with help from 6400 class diesels) don't have these couplers. These cars come of at Venlo or Emmerich (border stations and change of overhead voltages. The German locomotives had the automatic couplers. At least the older class used, don't know about the newer ones.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

German Class 151 electrics still have Auto-couplers for the Ore trains.

[TH&B]

But these semi automatic couplers you are talking about on the German and Swedish ore trains are not American style knuckle couplers, but of a Russian type of coupler that is different. Sweden is testing the US styler coupler and may convert if trains need to be even heavier.

[MStLfan]

I am going to change the name of the thread to Continental European railway operations. It is shorter and more clear. Anybody with improvements on the name?

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[beaulieu]

Supplemental to my previous posting about Hupac. Today they released traffic figures for the first half of 2006. Overall traffic is up by 17.5 percent over the first six months of last year. Regular Intermodal is up by 19.4 percent, while Rolling Highway is down by 17.8 percent. Based on this I could see Hupac dropping the Rolling Highway service at the end of this year. The RailAlpin Rolling Highway service over the Lotschberg is doing well. The difference is the ability to carry larger trailers over the Lotschberg/Simplon route versus the Gotthard. If they keep this momentum for the whole year they should overtake Kombiverkehr as the largest Intermodal Operator in Europe.

[Murphy Siding]

     I'm trying to picture the topography of continental Europe in my head.....Doesn't a train that goes from The Netherlands, to Italy go through some majot mountains in Switzerland or France?

[Hugh Jampton]

     I'm trying to picture the topography of continental Europe in my head.....Doesn't a train that goes from The Netherlands, to Italy go through some majot mountains in Switzerland or France?

That would be the Alps. From the Netherlands it's best to fgo South East into Gernmany, through Cologne snd down through Karlsruhe or Stuttgart and down through Zurich or Innsbruk which brings you to the top of Italy.
http://www.mytravelguide.com/rail/european-rail-map.php is some kind of pdf map.

[Murphy Siding]

     Does this involve a fair amount of mountain rairoading, like in the western US and Canada?

[Hugh Jampton]

Semi-sort of. In Switzerland it's all electric trains the freights are a lot shorter and less numerous than the passenger and the Swiss are big on their tunnels, they're building 2 new ones to go under the Alps at teh moment, the Lötschberg Base Tunnel is a 21 mile tunnel while the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be 35 miles long (and the longest railway tunnel in the world) when it's finished.
But the scenery is the same,, nice and pretty like.

[Hugh Jampton]

see..

[beaulieu]

     Does this involve a fair amount of mountain rairoading, like in the western US and Canada?

Yes, both the Gotthard Pass, and the Lotschberg Route have grades over 2.2 percent. A big difference is that their freight trains are smaller. But they must make speed up the mountains to stay ahead of the passenger trains. Speed limit for both freight and passenger over the current Gotthard Pass line is 80 kph.
(about 52 mph). So a freight train weighing 1400 metric tonnes (1540 US tons) is the limit without a helper. Power is normally one Re 6/6 ( Re 620) and one Re 4/4 II or III (Re 420 or Re 430) called an Re 10/10 (10 axles all powered), this gives a total of 16,750 hp. on the front. Train power to weight
of a bit better than 10hp.  per US ton. The North Ramp of the Gotthard has one Spiral tunnel and a double horseshoe. The South Ramp has 4 Spiral Tunnels . The ruling grade going southbound is 2.8 percent for a distance of about 18 miles from Erstfeld to Goschenen. The ruling grade going northbound is also 2.8 percent for 28.5 miles from Biasca to Airolo. The line is double track through out. The Summit Tunnel is from Goschenen to Airolo and is 15 km long (about 9.3 miles) and is also double track.

[Murphy Siding]

     What would the *typical*(?) trip be like for a car of freight moving from the Netherlands to Italy be like?  It would seem like borders,interchanges,differing signals, engine changes, etc...would make it very challenging?

[beaulieu]

     What would the *typical*(?) trip be like for a car of freight moving from the Netherlands to Italy be like?  It would seem like borders,interchanges,differing signals, engine changes, etc...would make it very challenging?

Ok, Murphy I'll give it a try. It'll be my story so I get to set it up, within your guidelines. I'll also try not to make the story too long. If you are familiar with Google Earth I will provide coordinates for some of the locations but not all send me a private e-mail if you want more coordinates. Let's make this a story about a carload of standard steel I-beams. Let's say that steel distributor Rampi located at Via Filippo Da Desio 42, 20032 Desio,  Italy needs some I-beams for stock and Corus Steel in Ijmuiden, Netherlands gives him the best price and availability. Plug the street address and town for Rampi into Google Earth to look at their facility (high resolution), plug Ijmuiden, Netherlands into Google Earth, zoom back out to about 20,000 feet and look up just across the ship canal to see the Corus Steelworks (low res). The I-beams would most likely be loaded onto a Railion owned railcar similiar to this Res.
The train would be powered by either a Class 1600 5900 hp. B-B electric built in the '80s by Alstom or a pair of Class 6400 1450hp B-B diesel-electrics built by MaK in the late '80s- early '90s. The train would depart the steelworks and because of the track layout would have to go north to somewhere beyond Uitgeest and the run around its train. The it would come back through Zaandam, take the tunnel under the ship canal and pass through Amsterdam Centraal station (not done at peak commuter times, but does happen during the day), All trains from and to the Corus works must pass through Amsterdam Centraal. Going east to the Amsterdam Rail Ring and then turn south. Then take the avoiding line at Duivendrecht and head east towards Utrecht. Before we get to Utrecht our freight is diverted south at Breukelen on the avoiding line towards Woerden and then Gouda (say cheese). There is no avoiding Rotterdam so our train runs down the double track mainline into Rotterdam Centraal station, there is a single track for freight right through the middle of the station platforms. South out of the station its four tracks into the tunnel under the river Maass. Coming up on the other side we pass through Rotterdam Zuid station, past a small freight yard and then come to the junction with the freight line running to the various sections of the Port of Rotterdam on our right. Going south through a flying junction the double track port line joins our line just before Barendrecht station and suddenly we have a 9 track mainline to Kijfhoek Yard, the 6 passenger tracks pass down the west side of the yard while the 3 freight tracks enter the yard. Kijfhoek Yard is an Ultramodern built in the Nineties, and is equipped with three sets of retarders leading to each track in the bowl (many humpyards only have two sets). Further all the bowl tracks have mechanical mules located between the rails to trim the cars without the need for switch engine to enter the bowl. If our car left the steelworks in the afternoon it should end its first day at Kijfhoek Yard. If there are no problems it should depart Kijfoek behind a Class 1600 electric on train FE 45713 at 5:55 am., pass Eindhoven at 7:14am. and reach Venlo (the border) at 7:58am. The locomotive is change and customs cleared the train is scheduled to depart at 9:43am behind a Railion Class 185 electric. The route reaches the Ruhr at Oberhausen and joins the Freight Ring and heads south for Cologne and Gremberg Yard which is reached at about noon. Again over the hump and the end of Day 2. Day 3 sees the car departing Gremberg Yard at about 10:00am. on train FE 44613 down the east bank of the Rhine, passing Linz at 10:15am, and St. Goarshausen at 11:08am., and Freiberg at 05:00pm. arrival at Basel Muttenz Yard is scheduled for 6:59pm. Yet again over the hump. From here it becomes a real guess train 44005 due out of Muttenz Yard at 03:15am. is a good possibility. If so its over the Bozberg to Brugg at 03:59am. Rotkreuz at 4:36am. It arrives at Erstfeld at 05:23am for a crew change. Power is booked as 1 Re 620 B-B-B electric rated at 10,500 hp. and 1 Re 420 B-B electric rated at 6300hp. At Erstfeld a helper is added and it departs at 05:36am across the Gotthard Pass. Goschenen is reached at 06:04am and the helper is dropped and a brake test made. Through the tunnel and down through the spiral tunnels to Bellinzona San Paolo Yard at 07:25am, Lugano at 08:15am and arrival at Chiasso (the border) at 08:41am. After being switched over the mini-hump at Chiasso the SBB would probably deliver the car to the customer in Desio using a Class Am 840 diesel on the afternoon of the fourth day using its rights as an Open Access operator in Italy. The steel customers around the Greater Milan area were a prime target since Trenitalia usually took two days to get cars from Chiasso to customers in the Desio area less than 25 miles away.

[owlsroost]

As an interesting comparison, a human could do basically the same trip - Amsterdam to Milan following roughly the same route but using a section of high-speed line in Germany - in about 12.5 hours with just one change of train at Basel (a 15 minute connection).

The road distance between Amsterdam and Milan is about 1100km, so assuming a trucker is driving the maximum of 9 hours per day allowed in the EU and most of the route is motorway/autobahn/autoroute, they could probably do the trip in 2 days.

It certainly points up the rail versus road freight competition issues......anyone know the relative rail and truck shipping costs ?

Tony

(If you're interested in international passenger journey times in Europe, the DB online timetable is quite good - http://www.db.de/site/bahn/en/start.html )

[Kevin C. Smith]

Hupac also operates 6 Rolling Highway trains per day over the Gotthard route from Basle and Schaffhausen on the north to Lugano on the south, these trains offer drive on and drive off ability for semi-trucks allowing truck drivers to rest while the train is moving and complying with hours of driving regulations.

I'm curious about these-are these open or enclsed cars for the semi-trucks? Do the drivers ride in their cabs or a seperate car? If they are in a rider car, do they have access to their trucks while en route? If they are in their cabs, do they have access from them?

[Simon Reed]

The cars are open.

A lounge car is provided on the train but is optional - having said that, there's a lounge car on the BLS Lotschberg rolling road but I'm not sure about the Gotthard.

There'd be no access between trucks and lounge car whilst the train was in motion so you make your choice when you drive onto the train.

From observation I'd say that the majority of drivers elect to stay in their cabs, where at least they are guaranteed a peaceful place to sleep.

[MStLfan]

     What would the *typical*(?) trip be like for a car of freight moving from the Netherlands to Italy be like?  It would seem like borders,interchanges,differing signals, engine changes, etc...would make it very challenging?

Ok, Murphy I'll give it a try. It'll be my story so I get to set it up, within your guidelines. I'll also try not to make the story too long. If you are familiar with Google Earth I will provide coordinates for some of the locations but not all send me a private e-mail if you want more coordinates. Let's make this a story about a carload of standard steel I-beams. Let's say that steel distributor Rampi located at Via Filippo Da Desio 42, 20032 Desio,  Italy needs some I-beams for stock and Corus Steel in Ijmuiden, Netherlands gives him the best price and availability. Plug the street address and town for Rampi into Google Earth to look at their facility (high resolution), plug Ijmuiden, Netherlands into Google Earth, zoom back out to about 20,000 feet and look up just across the ship canal to see the Corus Steelworks (low res). The I-beams would most likely be loaded onto a Railion owned railcar similiar to this Res.
The train would be powered by either a Class 1600 5900 hp. B-B electric built in the '80s by Alstom or a pair of Class 6400 1450hp B-B diesel-electrics built by MaK in the late '80s- early '90s. The train would depart the steelworks and because of the track layout would have to go north to somewhere beyond Uitgeest and the run around its train. The it would come back through Zaandam, take the tunnel under the ship canal and pass through Amsterdam Centraal station (not done at peak commuter times, but does happen during the day), All trains from and to the Corus works must pass through Amsterdam Centraal. Going east to the Amsterdam Rail Ring and then turn south. Then take the avoiding line at Duivendrecht and head east towards Utrecht.

There is a faster way.

Rather than going via Woerden and Gouda to Rotterdam, this train goes on to Utrecht, Arnhem, Emmerich and to its destination, Hagen, just south of the Ruhr. This train hauls a lot of steel products and I think Hagen is used to collect and redistribute cars and trains from various steel producers.

I am not sure about the route south, probably via Siegen and Frankfurt to Mannheim and then along the Rhine. Might be a day faster. Especially since these trains run through with Russian build big diesels (formerly used in East Germany) and, at the most, change only a crew at Emmerich. Hagen will be the first point were classification can take place.

Come to think about it, an increasing number of container trains run with these diesels as well from Rotterdam to Emmerich. They then can pass their Canadian competitors from ACTS, ERS etc.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[martin.knoepfel]

The lounge cars on the Rolling Highway are former sleepers, some being of German origin.  They have been repainted. Before, the Rolling Highway used former Swiss "sleepers".

The Rolling Highway hauls tractors and trailers. It survives only because it is more heavily subsidised than unacompanied combined traffid (trailers or containers). This is a political decision. Subsidies come from the taxpayers, although trucks have to pay a heave-load-tax in Switzerland and in some other countries. In Germany, for example, the tax is limited to highways (and some other roads), while in Switzerland, it is general. In France and Italy, you have to pay for using highways, there are toll-gates. I thing, France wants to introduce a Rolling Highway too. A few years ago, the Germans tried it to avoid congestion in the Munich area, but the trains were discontinued after a few months because of insufficient patronage.

The cars for the semi-trucks need have very small wheels and two bogies with IIRC four or five axles each. Otherwise, the roll-on-roll-off-design would be impossible within the small European lauding-gauges. (Small by US standards.) The cars for the semi-trucks have special couplers incompatible with other rolling-stock. The trains of the Rolling Highway have special end-cars, equipped with hook-and-chain-couplers. The lounge-cars kept the hook-and-chain-couplers.
Early designs of the cars for the semi-trucks very difficult in braking. Rumors even go they had to regularly stop and take a break to let the brakes cool down on the Gotthard-Route.

However, there is another competition for railroads that has not yet been mentioned: Shipping goods round the Peninsula of Spain  and Portugal. I recently read an article on Swiss Federal Railways' Cargo Division winning a steel-contract from Germany to Italy. The last competitor in the bidding-process offered to ship the steel from Germany to a port on the North Sea - I don't know whether they wanted to go by rail, truck or barge - on an ocean-going-ship to a an Italian port in the  Mediterranean Sea and from there to the destination in Northern Italy. Last leg most probably by truck.

[beaulieu]

As an interesting comparison, a human could do basically the same trip - Amsterdam to Milan following roughly the same route but using a section of high-speed line in Germany - in about 12.5 hours with just one change of train at Basel (a 15 minute connection).

The road distance between Amsterdam and Milan is about 1100km, so assuming a trucker is driving the maximum of 9 hours per day allowed in the EU and most of the route is motorway/autobahn/autoroute, they could probably do the trip in 2 days.

It certainly points up the rail versus road freight competition issues......anyone know the relative rail and truck shipping costs ?

Tony

(If you're interested in international passenger journey times in Europe, the DB online timetable is quite good - http://www.db.de/site/bahn/en/start.html )

True, but unfortunately as outsiders we cannot see why there is a need to sort the car so many times. It could be because there just isn't enough volume from Kijfhoek to Italy or it could be because Railion just wants to handle all the traffic via Gremberg.

One important thing has changed in just the last few months. Railion has announced that they will no longer use the SBB to move carload traffic from Germany to Italy (I presume this also means all carload traffic from north of the German-Swiss border. Railion intends to sort all this  traffic at its humpyard in Mannheim, and then move it across Switzerland in Railion trains. In a German  logistics magazine a major shipper expressed scepticism that Mannheim would be able to handle the additional volume. I believe that Railion made this move solely as a retaliation against SBB Cargo's success in winning traffic in Germany. If this is their motivation I think that it won't be long before they regret this move. SBB Cargo is a nimble highly focused operation and it didn't take them too long to respond to this attempt by Railion to undercut the basis of the Swiss carload network. No pin to jab at the German's big hide, instead they have chosen to drive a spear back into Railion. What SBB Cargo has announced is that they are setting up their own carload network for German traffic and Scandanavian traffic off of the carferries at Lubeck and Rostock. They intend to cherry pick the best of Railion's carload traffic in a big way. Hopefully Railion will come to its senses in time, because SBB Cargo's action could topple the economics of major portions  of the German (Dutch too!) carload networks. At least the  Swiss followed a favorite axiom of mine, when you need to talk to a donkey its best to break a 2x4 across its forehead to make sure you have its undivided attention. No boiling frogs for them.

Tony, a better comparison to the trucker would be to look at say a Hupac Intermodal train from Rotterdam RSC to Novarra Boschetto (unfortunately none of their Rotterdam trains run to their Milan terminal). The shorter distance at the beginning is compensated at the end because the train is routed via Chiasso. Hupac's schedule says drop your container off by 2:00pm Monday in Rotterdam, and you can pick it up in Novarra at 6:00 am Wednesday, which doesn't seem too bad. What you the customer do not see, is how hard Rail4Chem and Noord Cargo work to make that happen. First the train doesn't depart Rotterdam until 6:20pm., The slack time belongs to Hupac. Next the train has to make a stop at Ede-Wageningen for Hupac, so the train has to run north through Rotterdam,thence to Utrecht and on to Ede-Wageningen. It stands at Ede-Wageningen for an hour and ten minutes while they add more containers. It reaches Emmerich at 10:15 pm. After border formalities and an engine change it departs, my next timing point is at Remagen just south of Bonn at 1:27am. It is scheduled to arrive at Basel Muttenz at 9:08 am, 13 hours 48 minutes after leaving Rotterdam, and only 12 hours and 38 minutes of running time. Chiasso is scheduled for 5:02 pm. less than 23 hours out of Rotterdam. Unfortunately I don't have timetables for Italy.

John Beaulieu

[MStLfan]

That part about SBB Cargo setting up its own network for carload traffic is very interesting.

Not long ago an independent switching company started in Rotterdam: Rotterdam Rail Feeding. With the Betuweroute SBB Cargo can get relatively into Rotterdam. Maybe it will get interesting on the carload front too!

By the way Mittelweserbahn and others already operate a small network of carload trains under the name of Ecco-cargo. Are they cooperating partners of SBB or is only HGK (Hafen und Gueterverkehr Koeln) a partner? HGK already has a license to operate trains here in the Netherlands.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[Murphy Siding]

     John:  Thanks for your reply on the *typical * carload trip.  That was interesting.  It does raise a few questions. What are *avoiding tracks* and *freight rings*?  You mention the train changing power at The Netherlands border.  Is that due to changing to a different railroad, or to a differing electrical(?) system?  When the customs officials look over a train, what do they do/what are they checking?  -Thanks

[MStLfan]

Hi Murphy,

I'll try to answer your questions. First: there is a belt line around Amsterdam. This line crosses various lines going into Amsterdam Centraal Station. The connections from the belt line to the other lines are the avoiding tracks (there are more). At two places were the beltline and the line to Centraal Station cross (not on the level) there are stations with platforms on both lines. Amsterdam Sloterdijk and Duivendrecht. The connecting tracks (2) at Sloterdijk have a platform iirc. Duivendrecht may have a platform or it is slightly further along and server the Amsterdam Arena, home of soccer team Ajax.

The beltline is heavely used by passenger trains. Especially from Almere and Amersfoort via the south of Amsterdam to Schiphol airport. The airport area is a major employer, so lots of locals as well as longer distance intercity trains for travelers to the airport.

Dutch electrification is at 1500 v DC and Germany at 15000 v AC. Class 1600 can only operate under 1500v dc. Hence the change at the border.

As far as I know there are no regular customs checks at the border. Not since 1992 with the single market in the EU. There are frequently checks by carmen. A number of the 6400 class diesels are set up to operate into Germany. Several engineers from Railion NL have been trained to operate into the Ruhr area but I don't think they currently run that far. But that may have changed already, freight traffic is very dynamic these days. One a block train of this or that is run by company A and the next week by company B. A lot of customers are trying out the new kids on the block with regard to price and especially service.

 

[MStLfan]

As for freight rings: in the early days of German railroading there were various companies operating railnetworks in the area around Cologne and the Ruhr. After the Prussian state nationalised them and with the advent of industrialisation the network was rationalised and then a large number of lines became freight only. On the state owned network it was possible to go round on both freight lines and passenger lines iirc.

greetings,

Marc Immeker