Continental European Railway Operations

[beaulieu]

Here is a listing by size of the largest freight operators in the EU and EFTA leaving out the Baltic Republics.
* - indicates a OA only operator (Not a National Railway) Ranking is by 2005 tonne-kilometers
figures are in millions of tonne-kilometers.

Name              Country                2004              2005        Change

Railion              Germany           77,621          83,111      +7.1 %
PKP Cargo       Poland             47,847           43,791     - 8.5%
SNCF Fret      France               46,348           40,697    - 12.2%
Green Cargo  Sweden              32,300           32,200    -0.3%
Trenitalia         Italy                      21,046          20,118    -4.4%
RCA                Austria                19,026           18,012    -5.3%
FOC*               UK                       15,020          16,100    +7.2%
CD Cargo      Czech Republic  14,586           14,356   -1.6%
SBB Cargo    Switzerland           9,282            11,482   +23.7%
RENFE          Spain                    11,365           10,823   -4.8%
VR                   Finland                 10,105             9,706   -3.9%
ZSSK Cargo Slovakia                  9,675             9,328   -3.6%
MAV               Hungary                  8,270             8,517   +3.0%
B-Cargo         Belgium                  7,690             8,130   +5.7%
Rail4Chem*   Germany                                        3,600
SZ                   Slovenia                 3,147             3,245    +3.1%
BLS Cargo*   Switzerland            2,126             2,823   +32.0%
CP                   Portugal                 2,280             2,422    +6.2%
TX Logistics*  Germany                2,000     
HGK *              Germany                                       1,748  
GySEV*           Hungary/Austria        670               658    -1.8%
OSE                 Greece                       593               625   +5.4%
CFL                  Luxembourg              561               392    -30.1%


BLS and GySEV are not National Railways but do own significant sections of track.
Note that both Swiss Railways did well, with SBB Cargo moving up three places on the list. Rail4Chem is growing at a double digit rate. The figure for the UK is the combined total for EW&S, Freightliner, GB Railfreight, and DRS.

[beaulieu]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

Hugh, hit the answer, the details are more complicated. In simplest form, in all European countries the government owns the infrastructure. Exactly how they own it varies from country to country. In a few cases its as simple as that, in most cases its more complicated. I am not sure of the arrangements in the two "B"s, the Baltic Republics and the Balkans. Let me run down some of the countries,
in these countries the Infrastructure is owned by a Government owned company separate from the National Railway, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania.
In these countries the Infrastructure is owned by the National Railway, at least theoretically in an independent subsidiary, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary.
In Switzerland it is a little more complicated as there are several railways separate from the SBB, the National Railway. As an example BLS (Bern-Loetschberg-Simplon) In Switzerland it is a subsidiary of the operator that owns the Infrastructure.
One place I do disagree with Hugh is over the Open Access freight operations. In the Netherlands there is no longer a National Freight Operator, the National Operator is now the German National Railway's freight operator Railion. In the Netherlands it is as open as it is in the UK. In Germany Railion is the National Operator and is a tough competitor but the young lions are eroding its share of the market. In 2005 the OA companies including SBB Cargo the Swiss National Railway now have 15 percent of the market up from just over 10 percent in 2004. They have accomplished this while Railion has lost less than 1 percent of its tonne-kilometers.

Regarding Ed Burkhardt. Ed bought a franchise in Estonia which is named Estee Raudtee (Estonian Railways), and which was the main freight part of the National Railway. This included exclusive use of the tracks for something like 25 years. At the time Estonia was not yet part of the EU. Now with Estonia part of the EU they are working to break the contract with Ed as it violates EU law. Also the Russian's on whom Ed depends for most of his traffic are playing rough. They would like him out of there. Ed's other venture is a small Open Access operator in Poland. Poland has implemented a limited form of Open Access, you have to establish a separate company in Poland. Ed's company is very small so far. The National Freight Railway in Poland is PKP Cargo, they are many times the size of Ed's company.

[Hugh Jampton]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

Railways of the European Union generally are organized into separate units for management of infrastructure, freight operations, and passenger operations, although in most countries all units are still government-owned. There's some open access operations in most countries now, but these are relatively small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

[Murphy Siding]

    In general, who owns the railroads/track/equipment in Europe.  I understand the situation in Britain from the British thread.  Ownership on the continent is a little fuzzier.  I thought most were state owned, but mention of Ed Burkhardt owning parts of some European roads makes me wonder.

[TH&B]

Switzerland is in a unique position in that as far as freight traffic is concerned most of it is bridge traffic between Italy, germany and France. Sitzerland would have very little benifit in having large amounts of trucks driving through only gengeling the hiways and poluting the valleys with little economic gain for Switzerland itself. It is not an EU country so EU laws don't apply, so if the surounding big countries insist on wanting to truck or rail their comerce through Switzerland then wring them dry, make the shippers pay wich is what they are doing by charging the truckers heavily who will have to recover the charges from the shippers who are the Germans, Italians and French and even the rest of Europe.

The Swiss taxpayers cover the great internal passenger train services and the very expensive mountainous roads.

[sebamat]

I've admired those huge threads about British railroading or the coffeeshop.
So I am going to start one here about European railroading in general.

Marc Immeker

A question I had im my head from long time: why did european RRs choose to use 4 wheels (2 axes) freight and passenger cars (even after having tried the 8 wheels cars in 1860-80s, e.g Wuertenger and some ante SBB swiss rrs), and only after WW1 started using again 4 axes passenger cars (after going with the 3 axes ones)? They are still building 2 axes freight cars today (but the percentage of 4 axes increased a lot in the last 20-30 years).

US RR started almost from the beginning with the 4 axes, and never changed. What are the advantages (and the down side?) of this choice.

Sebastiano

[sebamat]

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.

There is another kind of patronage: azmat loads that are not allowed in the long highway's tunnels under the Alps (Gotthard, Gran Sanbernardo). On the Gotthard line the majority of the loads are tank trucks.

 

sebastiano

[owlsroost]

Finally tracked down where the EMD website has moved to - http://www.emdiesels.com - there's Euro 4000 info at http://www.emdiesels.com/en/locomotive/international/euro4000/index.htm

Tony

[beaulieu]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

The lead locomotive is a Vossloh (MaK) G1206 built in 2001, the trailing roadswitcher is a MaK G1203 built in 1991, the G1206 is an improved G1203 slightly more powerful etc.
Seehafen Kiel had a G1100 but sold it to NEG when they bought the new G1206. The G1100 was a bit more powerful and was succeeded in the Vossloh lineup by the G1700. There are hundreds of these roadswitchers running around Europe built by Vossloh and its predecessors under various models.

[Hugh Jampton]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

They appear to be Vossloh G-1200s
http://www.vossloh-locomotives.com/fs_main.html
(you'll need to poke around a bit to find them)

or possibly they're G 1100s if this site is to be believed http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/de/private/port/SK/pix.html


in any event Seehafen Kiel is the Port of Keil and these engines are part of their railway.

[Murphy Siding]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

     Maybe it's just me, but I liked the look of the smaller road switchers in the photos better.  What are they?

[beaulieu]

I don't think we'll se the end of the 66s too soon.
The Euro 4000 is quite big at 4264mm high and 2850mm wide so it's a bit big for a lot of the loading gauges as it'll only fit in a UIC-GC gauge.
While the 66 is a tiny 3900mm high and 2640mm wide and can fit in a lot more places.

The Vossloh plant in Spain is the one that built the Class 67s for the UK. The RENFE locomotive has the same bogies as the Class 67, same powertrain too. With all the requirements for approvals and the length of time it takes to get them, I doubt if the Class 66 will disappear any time soon. I think the Euro 4000 was targeted to the new German passenger operators like Nord Ost Bahn (NOB). Tony, the SD70M-2 actually has D100TR traction motors, quite a bit stronger (heavier too!) than the D77 type found on the Class 59s. It will be interesting to see how the Euro 4000 does against its competitor the Voith Maxima, which also was released from the factory this week, and also to be shown at Innotrans 2006.

[Hugh Jampton]

I don't think we'll se the end of the 66s too soon.
The Euro 4000 is quite big at 4264mm high and 2850mm wide so it's a bit big for a lot of the loading gauges as it'll only fit in a UIC-GC gauge.
While the 66 is a tiny 3900mm high and 2640mm wide and can fit in a lot more places.

[owlsroost]

Didn't Alsthom sell a plant in Spain (Valencia? Formerly Macosa or something like that? They held a license from EMD) to Vossloh? That may be the explanation to the similarities in cabstyling.

Yes, they did, and that would explain the styling heritage (personally I think the 67's are ugly - much prefer the class 66 styling, but I appreciate the aerodynamic styling issues with a 125mph loco).

Does this mean an end to the deliveries of class 66 from Canada?

I doubt it - the 66 is a proven, reliable design built in quantity, almost certainly cheaper to buy than the Euro 4000 is ever likely to be.

Does anyone have more technical details on the Euro 4000 - the only stuff I could find from a quick Google search was that it uses a V16 710G prime mover, D43 traction motors and weighs about 120 tonnes, with (from the pictures) Vossloh's own Co-Co bodyshell and truck design. I think this would make it electrically more akin to an uprated 66 than an SD70M (which I assume has D77 traction motors).

Tony

[MStLfan]

Didn't Alsthom sell a plant in Spain (Valencia? Formerly Macosa or something like that? They held a license from EMD) to Vossloh? That may be the explanation to the similarities in cabstyling. Does this mean an end to the deliveries of class 66 from Canada? 

Personally, I think Siemens has a better looking cab but as long as it gets the job done...

By the way, I prefer the Seehafen Kiel loks for looks.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[Tulyar15]

The cabs remind me of the EWS Class 67, which have the same engine as the Class 66's built in Canada by EMD, but the 67's were built by Alsthom in Spain and are Bo-Bo rather than Co-Co.

[beaulieu]

Here is a first look at the new Vossloh built, GM powered Euro 4000 locomotive. This is a SD70M-2 in a European package.

Euro 4000

[owlsroost]

Does anyone know if there was an AC high voltage electrification anywhere in the World in 1903?

Dave,

Out of interest, why 1903 in particular ?

Tony

 

[beaulieu]

Does anyone know if there was an AC high voltage electrification anywhere in the World in 1903?

10Kv. 50 Hz 3-phase in the Berlin area from 1901 to 1904.

10Kv. 16 2/3 Hz. 1-phase Murnau to Obergammarau from 1904

The common 15Kv 16 2/3 Hz. began in 1911 between Bitterfeld and Dessau

[daveklepper]

Does anyone know if there was an AC high voltage electrification anywhere in the World in 1903?

[owlsroost]

One of the longest regular traffic flows right now is for Ford, carrying high-cube autoparts containers from Cologne to Instanbul running 3 times per week

The new 'Orient Express' maybe?

Tony

[beaulieu]

Presumably we will see ever increasing freight traffic to the new countries in middle and eastern Europe as their economies keep improving. Due to the efficient and strategically located ports along the North Sea compared to detours to the Baltic or Mediterranean Seas this will become a major corridor.

Marc Immeker

     It would appear that Germany would be the crossroads of a whole lot of future traffic?  Are railroads there aniticipating growth from the east?        Thanks

Yes they are, the problems arise in the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary. In some cases old freight flows are disappearing which will create space for new ones. But passenger traffic is increasing as the citizens standard of living rises, Also even though the infrastructure is there, it needs a lot of upgrading. And the new members of the EU aren't as wealthy as the old members, the EU is making loans but there isn't enough to go around. Many US and European multinationals are opening new factories in Eastern Europe to take advantage of lower costs. For example Trinity Industries(the US railcar builder) bought and then sold, Wagon Swidinica in Poland which is now the largest freight car builder in Europe. Fiat has an automobile factory in Poland, Volkswagen built a new factory in Slovakia, etc. One of the longest regular traffic flows right now is for Ford, carrying high-cube autoparts containers from Cologne to Instanbul running 3 times per week

[Murphy Siding]

Presumably we will see ever increasing freight traffic to the new countries in middle and eastern Europe as their economies keep improving. Due to the efficient and strategically located ports along the North Sea compared to detours to the Baltic or Mediterranean Seas this will become a major corridor.

Marc Immeker

     It would appear that Germany would be the crossroads of a whole lot of future traffic?  Are railroads there aniticipating growth from the east?        Thanks

   

[beaulieu]

      I'm of the conclusion that in Britain, the passenger business is the main business of the railroads, and freight is secondary.  Is this true of the continent also?  And further, what are the main freight hauls and corridors in Europe? What is it?/Where does it come from?/Where does it go?-that sort of thing?   Thanks

Marc has covered it pretty well, but I would like to add that on the Continental Europe freight has the distances to make railfreight viable, while in the UK distances are so short. Railfreight in Switzerland is as strong as it is in the US by percentage. Every industry has a siding and there are freight cars being loaded and unload, Austria is close behind. What may dim Americans perception of European freights is the overwhelming volume of the passenger trains. Imagine sitting in a little cafe in Rudesheim, Germany sipping a nice Beer or local wine, munching on a nice pretzel looking out across a doubletrack mainline with 10 freights and 2 passenger trains per hour, on the far side of the tracks is the Rhine river with barges and cruise ships, and on the far bank another busy rail line. beyond it all vineyard covered hills. What could be better. Simply put the busiest mainlines for freight in Europe will have more freights than the BNSF Transcon, or UP's Overland route, plus they will have a lot of passenger trains too. Yes, the freights will be shorter, and the more common electrics make less noise (not silent though).

[MStLfan]

Murphy,

This is true for most of western Europe. Exceptions are dedicated freight lines (existing like some routes in the Ruhr area of Germany or future ones like the Betuweroute here in the Netherlands).

One of the main freight routes is from the North Sea coast over the Alps like: Rotterdam (Netherlands) - Rhine valley (Germany) - Switzerland - northern Italy. These days lots of containers to Italy as many container lines do not go into the Mediterranean (a detour for most lines). Or Belgium (Antwerp / Gent / Oostende) - Germany - Switzerland - Italy. Or Hamburg / Bremerhaven / Emden (Germany) to Italy.

Another route is northern France - southern France and then to Italy or Spain. Due to the frequent strikes on French railroads and the considerably less than enthousiastic implementation of the EU open access directive much traffic now goes via Germany. Italy was thought of by many in the Netherlands as not quick to implement EU directives but at least on this score they are in the midfield. Belgiumand France are lacking.

Presumably we will see ever increasing freight traffic to the new countries in middle and eastern Europe as their economies keep improving. Due to the efficient and strategically located ports along the North Sea compared to detours to the Baltic or Mediterranean Seas this will become a major corridor.

Occasionally passenger traffic will lose out to freight, even during rush hours. The Utrecht - Arnhem line in the Netherlands lost a local to create more paths in the timetable for freights from IJmuiden (Corus steelworks) / Amstrdam and Rotterdam.

One other point of interest: more and more old border crossing are seeing a comeback of passenger and even freight service. In the Netherlands: Nieuweschans - Leer in the north (Germany, passenger and freight) and Enschede - Gronau (Germany, passenger). In the south it is Heerlen - Aachen (passenger, Germany). Maastricht - Liege is going to be upgraded to full Belgian intercity status with, probably, hourly service.

greetings,

Marc Immeker

 

[Murphy Siding]

      I'm of the conclusion that in Britain, the passenger business is the main business of the railroads, and freight is secondary.  Is this true of the continent also?  And further, what are the main freight hauls and corridors in Europe? What is it?/Where does it come from?/Where does it go?-that sort of thing?   Thanks

[MStLfan]

I'am glad that I am not flying soon. Long distance flights may get boring if we can't even take the latest issue of trains with us into the cabin. Not to mention all those tax free goodies....

greetings,

Marc Immeker

[beaulieu]

Right now the Europeans are enjoying very cheap air fares to many Eastern countries.

You ain't wrong there,, why, I can fly to somewhere unpronouncable for little more than a tenner, provided I want to fly on Tuesday morning at 06:00 in a sardine can...

That may just have changed a bit today. Glad you Brits are on the ball.

[Hugh Jampton]

Right now the Europeans are enjoying very cheap air fares to many Eastern countries.

You ain't wrong there,, why, I can fly to somewhere unpronouncable for little more than a tenner, provided I want to fly on Tuesday morning at 06:00 in a sardine can...

[beaulieu]

We are planning a trip to Europe in the fall. As a part of the trip we will take a cruise on the Danube River from Bucharest, Romania to Budapest, Hungary. Are there any restrictions on photographing trains or streetcars in Bucharest or Budapest from streets, parks, or railroad stations.?

Rudy, I would suggest posting that question on the usenet newsgroup. misc.transport.rail.europe or joining the yahoogroup EuroRail. The yahoogroup involves telling the moderator about yourself as a way of filtering out spammers. On both groups their are large groups of English-speaker Europeans with experience traveling in Eastern Europe. Alternatively I would suggest creating a new thread as a way to catch the eye of someone who may be experienced, but isn't interested in this discussion. Right now the Europeans are enjoying very cheap air fares to many Eastern countries.