The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) said Europe needs a more pragmatic approach to reach the goals set by the Green Deal. For rail freight, this means “more flexibility on short-term capacity allocation”, as CER mentioned. The need for more concrete solutions was brought up on Tuesday, 23 January, during a meeting […]
Category: Policy
No Rail Terminal Gelderland? No problem!
The province of Gelderland moves on quickly. On Monday, the province announced that it wants to abandon the construction of Rail Terminal Gelderland (RTG), as there appear to be no interested parties for its construction and operation. Immediately afterwards, the idea was put forward to locate the Arnhem rail yard at the planned RTG location […]
Ukraine wants to ban Russian rolling stock imports for 50 years
The Ukrainian government asked the National Security and Defense Council to introduce a bundle of sanctions against Russia for the next 50 years. Among other initiatives, there is the proposal for a five-decade ban on the imports of Russian rail rolling stock in Ukraine. Other than the ban on rolling stock imports, the Ukrainian government […]
Germany: federal government approves amended rail budget cuts
The majority of the German coalition government has approved the proposed budgetary cuts for 2024. Concerns that rail transport would receive considerably less funds for the running year are now confirmed. Nevertheless, the situation is better than initially expected since the government made some essential adjustments. The expectation from the draft budget 2024 was that […]
Hazardous goods violations lead to fines and parliamentary questions in the Netherlands
Dutch transport and environment watchdog ILT has imposed a preliminary fine on an operator of hazardous substances. During an inspection in December 2023, ILT discovered that 16 of the 24 reservoir wagons of a train headed to European destinations were not properly closed and overfilled. The situation caused risk of environmental hazard. The wagons were […]
Financial insecurity looms over future of German railways
Germany’s railways may face a lack of financing security. Rail association Allianz pro-Schiene reports that the financing for railways is secure for a duration of only a single year. In comparison, Austria and Switzerland have guaranteed longer-term financial security of six and twelve years respectively. Germany’s railways need multi-year financing security for construction and expansion […]
Financial insecurity looms over future of German railways
Germany’s railways may face a lack of financing security. Rail association Allianz pro-Schiene reports that the financing for railways is secure for a duration of only a single year. In comparison, Austria and Switzerland have guaranteed longer-term financial security of six and twelve years respectively. Germany’s railways need multi-year financing security for construction and expansion […]