I came across these facts in my local newspaper with regard to freight transport in the Netherlands. As most of the readers of this thread know we have a lot of waterways in my country, natural ones like the Rhine, Maas (Meuse) and Schelde and manmade canals like Amsterdam-Rhine canal.
Since 1999 600 new container ships have been build for shipping on the Rhine and the canals.
There is currently a 700 % growth capacity in waterborne freight traffic to Germany, Belgium and France and 100 % in domestic Dutch capacity.
23 riverside and canalside inland containerterminals have been build with governement subsidy (now abolished). There is apparently room for more if the subsidy is reinstated, mainly on the smaller canals. Trucks would then be limited to local distribution.
40 % of containers are transported over rivers and canals, tendency is growing. Growth is in connecting those inland terminals.
There are now 54 ships with a length over 130 meters and a width up to 17.4 meters under the Dutch flag. 12 tankships, 39 dry loads, mostly containers and when stacked 5 high the number is 500 teu. Compare that to the maximum container train length of 99 teu (33 60 ft cars).
There are 11000 ships on the rivers and canals of Western Europe, half of them Dutch.
Shipping has a share of 56 % of the international market from or to the Netherlands, road 41 % and rail a whopping 3 %!
This site has facts and more: http://www.inlandshipping.com/ not the latest though.
As an aside, this evening while commuting home by train a saw the smallest containership: 12 40 ft containers (more was not possible...).
Greetings,
Marc Immeker
Hi
You have chosen a very good subject which is a big part of the problem moving freight from road to rail.A goods vehicle driver can go wherever he wants, say from England to Poland, without being able to speaka word of Polish. For safety and other reasons it has been decreed that the train driver (engineer) must be able to communicate in the language used on that countries network. In practice it isn't a problem, as locomotives will probably have to be changed.This will probably have to be done in any event for different in cab signalling,means of power supply ( I am assuming electric traction. Apart from the UK which has a pityful sized electrified network, even ex communist block poor countries main lines are mostly electrified, like Romania, or Bulgaria, joining the EU from01-01-2007)not to mention pantograph width, and its head copper, carbon etc.
The issue is being addressed and a German rep. in the EU has suggested English! There are plenty of web sites, putting Rail Freight, Interoperability, and if you wish the Country into a search engine. Probably the EU Govt.site adding "transport" is a good place to start
Finally a rather excellent example of the problem happened a few years ago. When the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar started operating, the English and French Drivers had to learn enough of the others language to cope with technical and operating needs.
A Paris bound Eurostar was happily speeding to the French Capital at 186mph on the LGV through north France when, despite fencing, he hit a stag, and obviously stopped to check his powercar and report to Paris Control.The French controller asked what sort of animal he had struck. The driver thought a bit, not knowing the word, then replied in Cockney French "It was a cow with a pantograph"!
Andy
Hi Martin,
That seems to be quite a subsidy! Any information on the relation of subsidy to the total cost of the trip / movement?
I've dropped a clog, having sent an e mail rather than a reply.
I'm sorry, but got confused with my UK freight site, which has a different layout, plus premature senility
Thanks Martin.
greetings,
Sadly I havn't been able to get back to this forum for a week or so.No doubt you will have heard about the Stern Report. On this side of the pond, most folks seem to be smiling. Tell them that the world is on the verge of climatic collapse, and no one takes any notice.Mention that if we don't stop using cars(automobiles) or heavy goods vehicles starting to decline now,with economic consequences as bad as the 1929 Wall Street Crash, then all hell breaks loose. So on my home UK site, there has been a lot going on.
We are wondering how the Govt.will act, if at all, but more importantly the Civil Servants in the Dept. of Transport.The politicians think they run the country, but we all know, except them, that it is the full time guys who are usually sqeezing the Railway of cash, and also the assumption by my friends over here, that they are all barking mad or totally ignorent.
One of my friends is a driver (engineer), and had the misfortune to have a load of DfT top advisors in his cab.They were standing at a station, awaiting departure, and when the signals turned from red to green, this expert asked. " What does that funny light do ". As they were being directed to a slow line which is usually indicated by a row or rows of left or right facing or both white lights, fixed on top of the main signal, unlit if straight on, illuminated if the train is to be moved to a different track, the driver assumed that, it was just about possible, that this expert had not previously seen these Route Indicators.No says the guy, the one that went from red to green. God help us!
Have you tried the Railion web site, and also Stinnes, both German freight sites. You seem to have found most of the others, like Hupac.The trouble is new operators are springing up all the time, going bust, setting up subsiduaries, mergers, etc.I will try to get the most up to date I can and post. By the way have a look at the Mora C site. This is the name DB has given to the scheme to make wagonload traffic, which still acconts for about 40% of trafficin Germany more efficient. UK of course got out of this some years ago, concentrating only on Trainload and Intermodal. It's back now since privatasation, and doing OK.
Finally, glancing through some of the posts on the Betuwe Route, mention was made of double stack. This is the asparation of the proposed Central Freight Railway, a new line from Liverpool, around London, next to the Orbital M25 motorway, and then to the Channel Tunnel. Personally, I think it is a non starter, as many European countries, struggle with 9'6" boxes, not just the UK.The wagons used are either well wagons, with a floor 330mm above rail (The UIC standard) or "megafret" low deck, and small wheels, not like the tiny ones on the Rollende Landstrasse, about 730mm, with a deck height of 845 mm, which gets through the structure gauge of most main lines.Both types have a max. speed of 120kph.
Take care folks,
Andy.
Startup in Germany is relatively easy. Get yourself a second hand former East German V60 diesel locomotive and a driver's license (railroad one) and you can start powering infrastructure trains during heavy maintenance. Its a pity most owner / operators are dreaming big. They want to grow too big too fast. It was relatively easy to go from that one locomotive to a fleet leased from the builders and hiring drivers from a temp agency. I shudder when I think about their cost structure. With only a small head wind they can stumble and fall.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding wrote: Marc: John Beaulieu's post about a slowdown in carloadings on NA railroads made me wonder. How is *business* on European Railroads? Up, or down from last year?
beaulieu wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: Marc: John Beaulieu's post about a slowdown in carloadings on NA railroads made me wonder. How is *business* on European Railroads? Up, or down from last year?Hard to tell Murphy, Railion and SBB Cargo are up sharply. Others are up some. A few like SNCF Fret (France) are off quite a bit. I haven't seen 3Q figures yet, but through 2Q it was looking like a good year overall.
? Couldn't the same thing be said for NA railroads? Through 2Q, couldn't you say it was looking pretty good?
Murphy Siding wrote:ouldn't the same thing be said for NA railroads? Through 2Q, couldn't you say it was looking pretty good?
ouldn't the same thing be said for NA railroads? Through 2Q, couldn't you say it was looking pretty good?
Hi Murphy,
For those pesky facts you need John Beaulieu. He seems to be able to find them.
What I do know is this: in 2004 or 2005 (forgot which) Railion Netherlands hauled close to 33 million tons (metric) of freight. This is close to the all time record of 1963, just above 33 million tons (then it was still the cargo division of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS)). That year however was characterised by one of the most severe winters on record. Most rivers were frozen for quite some time so all the coal from our own mines and foreign mines had to be hauled by train.
Some 10 or 15 years ago NS Cargo had trouble reaching as high as 20 million tons of which 2.3 to 3 million was railraod infrastructure related.
These days we have, beside Railion, some 8 or so other operators here in the Netherlands and their numbers are harder to get at. John Beaulieu quoted figures from the UIC site but they seem to be all former monopoly railroads (not the game!). I miss Rail4chem, ERS Railways, HGK etc.
Overall the amount of freight hauled is much more than those 33 millions of Railion.
The big question is of course this: did the share of railroads grow (and more than the economy did/ the competition) or not. If not they then are still losing market share to road and inland shipping.
Open access competition does seem to have some effect in that some shippers, which had not shipped in some time because of poor service from Railion, did try the new competition. Sometimes they liked it and started to ship more, even via Railion.
Since the Dutch economy is growing again we should see more freight on the rails too. And the new Betuweroute finally goes into service sometime next year. This gives much needed track space on the current route east. However, the success really stands or falls with the German side. No significant increase there for some time will make increasing freight transport by rail difficult. The border station Emmerich for instance has way too few tracks for freight trains that change locomotives. Especially at times like last weekend when there are major trackworks at rail lines that are also heavily used by freigth trains.
Meanwhile, inland shipping is putting ships into service that have a capacity at least 3 times that of current container trains....
edit: the troubles of container terminal operator ECT (new computer system implementation problems and labor troubles) will definitely have an effect. Effects have lasted for weeks for both railroads and inland shipping.
This morning around 10.00 AM an empty passenger train and a container train collided on an westward extension of platform track 14 here at Rotterdam Central Station. All traffic at Rotterdam CS came to a standstill. Around 14.00 PM traffic started to move again but with severe disruptions to service going on at least untill 24.00 PM.
Both engineers escaped without damages. The containers were not so lucky. The container train had mixed cargo including loads of whisky. (Why am I not at those locations when things such as this happens )
Reparing the damage (catenary, cables, rails) may take up to 2 days.
There were 4 containers with hazardous material involved (Aniline UN 1547 en NAtriumboorhydride UN 3320(NaBH/NaOH)) so the whole station was shut down. According to some rumours the fire brigade was lazy checking the papers and the containers (happens often lately) so they shut down everything.
Another good one: because it was not clear what was in the containers NS could give no prognosis when trainservice would be resumed. All trains have papers, just check it! On the other hand, NS no longer operates freight trains so the spokesperson wouldn't know it (why give a statement?).
Anyway, the damage is considerable. See the following pictures. The container train was the ACTS 60244 with a class 58 (former English class 58) from Rotterdam Maasvlakte west (container terminal at the far west end of the harbor of Rotterdam) to Veendam in the north of the country.
The passenger train was a recently modified / upgraded class 2900 sprinter.
From the location it seems that it is the same place where earlier this year an intercity Rotterdam - Utrecht and a local Rotterdam - Gouda collided at around 7.10 AM. I was a passenger in the intercity train then. The location is in front of an office of railroad contractor BAM (which could be translated as bang in this instance).
First picture is from the newspaper AD, 2-4 are from Bert Stortenbeker (http://bert11.homeip.net/) and the last by Maarten Otto.
John,
I don't know if ACTS run the Veendam shuttle with diesel, electric from Kijfhoek or electric and diesel. It may depend on the available traction and / or the weight of the train, todays accident at Arnhem will see a class 66 out of action for some time I'm afraid. The 1200 class cannot get the heaviest shuttles over the road on time. Other routes where they are or can be used are Rotterdam - Leeuwarden, Rotterdam -Coevorden. Occasionally they can be found elswhere.
Also, ACTS only got 5 class 1200's from the scrapper. One was used for spares and I think that currently only 3 are available.
As for water levels, it varies I think. July was very hot, 35 degrees Celsius. August was the wettest month on record and autumn looks to set another record for warmth. Low water on the Rhine etc. seems distinctly possible. However, I have not observed this directly. Rotterdam is around the 1000 km point of the Rhine from Switzerland and there are only 30 km more to go from here. Tides are noticible here in the center of town. The situation in the canals can be regulated by the locks.
When looking at all the new open access operators it seems that they found a niche market in running infrastructure trains (ballast trains, moving track maintenance equipment etc) or got there start in running unit trains. Because they are smaller they can offer a more personal service to customers. Customers that were disappointed by the old state owned systems seem to give the new kids a try and often like what they get. Undoubtedly steadily worsening road conditions (gridlock particularly) are a factor just as a growing economy is.
One factor for the future is the fact that more land in the watershed of the Rhine is being build over (buildings and roads). The weather is getting more and more unpredictable with more extremes like longer periods of wet weather. This means that water gets faster to the rivers and they cannot get rid of it quickly enough. One of the measures being debated is dredging the river channels to a wider and deeper profile. Deeper certainly is good for inland shipping but not for railroads.
I particularly look forward to the elimination of the 1500 volt dc for freight traffic (opening of the Betuweroute). Not just from the standpoint of more variety in trainwatching. This will give freigth operators the chance to get an even longer haul to themselves with all economies of scale for themselves. Terminal to terminal competition between railroads will be more intense and more innovation in marketing and operating practices will result.
This is not a good week for ACTS. After yesterdays accident at Rotterdam Central Station and sundays incident (fire in a partytrain also at Rotterdam with power and personnel provided by ACTS), today another ACTS locomotive (ERS Railways actually, container shuttle 42377 to border station Emmerich and destination Melnik in the Czech republic, powered by ACTS 66 513-9, leased from MRCE and on long term hire to ERS Railways) collided with a local passenger train (plan V 826 and plan T 531 emu's in Zutphen - Arnhem - Nijmegen service by NS) at Arnhem in the east of the country. The station was blocked on the east side for a long time. International traffic (ICE trains Amsterdam - Frankfurt (Germany) and freight traffic) was affected.
31 people were injured, 11 persons were transported to hospitals. At 22.00 PM 3 were still in the hospital, none seriously injured.
The engineer of the freight train was questioned by the police. Witnesses said he ran past a red signal.
close up picture by Simon Bruggeling:
http://members.lycos.nl/simonbruggeling/PB211632.JPG
Next pictures from the Dutch press agency ANP
Next a picture from M Koot
Next pictures from Muhammed
Last a picture by M de Jongh
ACTS stated on its website that the locomotive was on sublease to ERS Railways. It was also an ERS Railways train so it was in all probability an ERS driver or a driver operating under ERS control, no information on the ERS Railways website though. If he really ran through the red signal while paying no attention to it he is in trouble. On the other hand, the Utrecht - Arnhem line (where he came from I think) has suffered from an excess of leaves on the track since last weekend. Or there may have been a problem with the locomotive. The police have not released details of the interogation.
In other Dutch rail news:
NS plans to invest 11 billion euros in new stations located at places where motorways and raillines cross each other. Facilities will include fitness centers, child care, supermarkets, theaters, restaurants, hotels, parking, car cleaning, cleaning for clothes.
At these transfer stations 1 billion is needed for the station themselves, 4 billion for new trains and 4 to 6 billion for the necessary infrastructure.
By 2020 these plans should be realised. Metro like lines would transport passengers from these transfer stations to the NS stations.
marcimmeker wrote:In other Dutch rail news: NS plans to invest 11 billion euros in new stations located at places where motorways and raillines cross each other. Facilities will include fitness centers, child care, supermarkets, theaters, restaurants, hotels, parking, car cleaning, cleaning for clothes. At these transfer stations 1 billion is needed for the station themselves, 4 billion for new trains and 4 to 6 billion for the necessary infrastructure. By 2020 these plans should be realised. Metro like lines would transport passengers from these transfer stations to the NS stations. greetings, Marc Immeker
We already have park and ride stations, mostly at suburban stations in newly developed neighbourhoods. Generally they function well.
I should have made clear where these stations will be build and why it is not a dumb plan. These stations are additional ones and do not replace inner city big stations. It is more of a further development of the park and ride theme outside (mostly) the build up areas.
First some geography. Around half the Dutch population (8 out of 16.3 million) lives in the west of the Netherlands in an area called Randstad Holland (loosely translated as Edge City Holland). That area is less than 20 % of our country. Actually it is a circle of cities and the circle has a diameter comparable to say, the greater Paris or London area. The hart of this area is empty and stays that way, it is designated a national landscape, those polders which have made us famous are located there...
Motorways leading in to the Randstad are largely 2 lanes per direction, like the A1 from Amersfoort to Amsterdam, especially the part until the A9/A10 belt motorways around Amsterdam. It is very difficult and in places no even possible to increase lanes on the A1 for instance. If you have ever driven a car during rush hour in the Netherlands on those motorways you don't need convincing. Unless you are Dutch, than it always is that other guy that should leave his car at home and use public transport...
Population movement for the last 20 years has been outward. In fact the circle has developed two distinct wings in the eastern direction. Now it is becoming horse shoe shaped. One wing is just above the great rivers in an area called Veluwe in the province of Gelderland. It is stretching all the way to Arnhem which is close to the border with Germany. The other wing stretches (south) east from Rotterdam / Dordrecht south of the rivers in the province of North Brabant.
The new stations will be east of a line from Amersfoort south to Utrecht and then south of the rivers as well as along an east -west line south of the rivers.
The goal is to get more car drivers out of their cars and into the trains, especially people that do not now use public transport. The (major) train stations however are all located in or near the centers of all the cities. Parking your car there is not a viable option, too expensive and it takes time to get into those cit centers. Out in the green fields it is easier since the target are the people who live outside the major cities in the countless small and growing towns. It is also not a viable option apparently to build new stations that can be served by the long distance trains (long by Dutch standards, they are more or less glorified commuter trains, it is quite normal to commute 100 km one way by trains or car these days). They would lose too much time.
So the idea is to build metro / subway type lines parallel to the rail lines from these transfer stations to the big stations. These transfer stations will probably see some rapid development around it.
By the way, these days around 1 million people ride NS trains. NS is working to increase that to 1.5 million by 2020. This plan is one of many ideas to get to that goal.
All in all not such a dumb plan as it may seem.
PS Randstad Holland consists of these cities (clockwise from Amsterdam): greater Amsterdam area, Almere, Bussum/Hilversum, Amersfoort, Utrecht, Nieuwegein / IJsselstein, Gorinchem, Dordrecht, greater Rotterdam area, Delft, greater the Hague area, greater Leiden area, greater Haarlem area, Zaanstad, Amsterdam. North wing: from Utrecht east, Driebergen / Zeist, Veenendaal, Rhenen, Wageningen, Ede, Arnhem, Nijmegen. South wing from Dordrecht: Breda, Tilburg / Waalwijk, northeast to Den Bosch, Oss and Nijmegen, southeast to Eindhoven/Helmond.
martin.knoepfel wrote:Hi Marc,two questions. Would it not be more convenient to build branch-lines from existing railroad ROWs to the new transfer stations and funnel the branch-line-trains into the main-line. No change of trains, possibility to get and keep a seat etc. Perhaps, the NS could use EMUs oder DMUs with automatic couplers for quick splitting or combining trains. Like the former RDC on the Boston & Maine. Other question. The passenger-train shown in the wreck-fotos - very good fotos, I must admit, although on a sad occasion - seems to be one of the famous dog-heads. I thought, they were all retired. Am I wrong?
I thought it was a "dog-heads" too at first, but then it wasn't. Do they still use dog-heads in service?
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