Despite EU war on truckers European trains clobbered by truc
DESPITE EU spending EUR28 billion (US$31 billion) on rail between 2007 and 2013 in a relentless war on trucking, freight trains continue to lose market share.
Europe's biggest railway, Deutsche Bahn blamed most of its 2015 EUR1.3 billion loss of - its first deficit in 12 years - on its declining domestic freight business, where revenues fell 10 per cent, reported IHS Media.
Rail performance "remains unsatisfactory" with freight speeds averaging 18 kilometres per hour (11.25 mph) on international routes, the European Court of Auditors said in a report in May.
"A single European railway is still a long way from being achieved ... the EU rail network by and large remains a system of separate national networks, with various national authorities and very different rules governing path allocation, management and pricing," the report noted.
The 36-mile-long Gotthard Tunnel, which is scheduled to start commercial operation at the end of the year, is part of that effort to create a unified European rail network.
It plans to effect a major shift from trucks and hopes to trim transit times for containers on the key Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa container route.
This is supposed to divert some cargo to southern European ports that currently pass through the dominant Le Havre-Hamburg port range.
"Traffic management procedures are not adapted to the needs of rail freight, even within rail freight corridors: freight trains are charged for every kilometre of rail infrastructure they use. This is not always the case for road transport."
"Extra funding will not resolve the problem by itself if strategic and regulatory issues are not addressed," said co-author Ladislav Balko.
The rail industry is, however, making inroads into the container market, albeit as a junior player to road transport, which still dominates the movement of traffic between European ports and their hinterland destinations.
"An increasing number of short-distance container trains to and from major box ports are meeting both the shippers' preference for fast pre-carriage and post-carriage and the ports' need to minimise the landside congestion," say Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.
Shippers have opted for trucks because they find rail transport too slow, too infrequent or not cost competitive for distances under 300 kilometres. Container trains in Europe also are much shorter than in the US and subject to restrictive regulation of their paths.
"But rail container shuttles to and from major box ports are now handling large volumes of containers and replacing the omnipresent trucks even on distances of 300 kilometres or less," said the Drewry report.
Most individual shippers don't have sufficient volume to justify a dedicated container train, but either the shipping line, the terminal or train operator can aggregate volumes and provide common-user trains, Drewry said.
The major players in container shipping are investing in rail to improve port/hinterland transport. APM Terminals, the Maersk Group's port arm, added an on-dock rail terminal alongside a barge terminal at the world's first fully automated terminal in Rotterdam with the target of transporting 55 per cent of its hinterland traffic.
The Rotterdam port authority recently unveiled a EUR275 million project to reroute 2.5 miles of rail track away from a bridge so that rail and shipping traffic "will cease to get in each other's way" as volume rises on a 100-mile double track freight rail connecting the port with the German rail network.
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