Parliamentarians in the Netherlands held a long-awaited rail freight debate on Thursday 3 April. For the rail freight sector it was a crucial moment. Businesses are barely holding on, and they have clear views on the policies that are needed to turn the tide. The debate could have provided some relief and peace of mind, but did not live up to the sector’s hopes.
The main takeaway from the debate is that the responsible government official, infrastructure state secretary Chris Jansen, will put forward a “future scenario” for the sector before summer. That would be in addition to a future plan that the ministry came up with in December, which was a big let-down for Dutch rail freight.
There is therefore, for good reason perhaps, skepticism that favourable policy proposals will see the light of the day in the ministry’s future scenario. The debate also did not change much in that regard for private rail freight association RailGood. “Politicians do not understand the issues and their urgency”, concludes RailGood frontman Hans-Willem Vroon.
Debate misses the point
Parliamentarians spent about three quarters of the three-hour long debate on discussions about dangerous goods transport on the mainline network, especially in view of the concerns of people living alongside the tracks. “The much-needed facilitation of competitive rail freight transport was, unfortunately, not really the main topic of the rail freight debate”, Vroon comments. Vroon singles out Marieke Koekkoek, representative of the party Volt, for her thorough understanding of the problems we face. The rest was not really on top of it.
“The mainline network for dangerous goods transport is not even among the top five concerns of the rail freight industry. Less than ten per cent of rail freight volume concerns high-consequence dangerous goods. And rail has a share of less than one per cent in the modal split in this in the Netherlands. Rather, the debate should have been about the ongoing recession in the sector. We have had shrinking business for three years in a row now”, says Vroon.
What does Dutch rail freight need?
In an ideal world, the state secretary would come up with solutions for a level playing field, the RailGood representative argues. That includes a reform of the sky-high parking fees for trains in the Netherlands, which Vroon says should go back to 2022 levels, albeit with a correction for inflation.
At the same time, there needs to be a new approach to track access charges. Those are set to increase significantly next year. “But that should also be accompanied by better quality and reliability of infrastructure. If infrastructure manager ProRail does not deliver, rail companies should receive compensation”, Vroon argues.
Lastly, there are the issues of 740-metre trains and the rail traffic management system ERTMS. The freight industry is primarily hoping that driving longer trains will become possible. “Where will the state secretary get the budget of a few hundred million euros for this?”, asks Vroon. The currently allocated budget is nowhere near sufficient. “With ten to twenty per cent of the budget for the current Dutch ERTMS program, all main routes can be made suitable for 740 metres of train length in the coming five to ten years, preferably in good synchronisation with Germany.”
ERTMS, a costly affair
When it comes to said ERTMS, the finances do not look much better. The Dutch government wants to equip a third of the mainline network exclusively with ERTMS level 2 baseline 3. That requires mass retrofitting, upgrading and earlier replacement of locomotives: a big expense at the cost of rail freight operators that will have to pay for it in the absence of subsidies.
Now, it turns out that only a third of the third (in other words, a ninth) will cost 4,2 billion euros. But even that number is already outdated, since Jansen informed the parliament about a 161 million euro increase in expected costs.
Consequently, RailGood maintains that there is absolutely no lack of ministerial budget for rail freight. It just has to be spent more effectively: “Certainly now that everyone realises that baseline 3 is not future-proof with the introduction of the communication system FRMCS in the 2030s”, says Vroon. “That was known since 2019 already, for which reason Switzerland chose not to invest in baseline 3.”