Norwegian rail operator Onrail will take over the Oslo-Narvik freight route. The company will now gain DB Schenker as a customer. Other companies did not manage to propose financially attractive enough deals to the German logistics company.
At the moment, the freight route from Oslo to the northern Norwegian port town of Narvik is being operated by the Swedish rail operator Green Cargo. DB Schenker has transported goods on the route, dubbed the “North Rail Express” (NRE), in cooperation with the Swedish operator since 2011.
Now, Swedish rail publication Järnvägar reports that DB Schenker is no longer satisfied with the prices offered by Green Cargo. Green Cargo has been demanding larger sums of money for its services. Additionally, negotiations with other freight train operators have not yielded any tangible results.
Onrail steps in
DB Schenker has now signed a 3-year agreement with Onrail, and the Norwegian rail operator is set to replace Green Cargo on the NRE. “We believe that we can develop traffic and improve profitability”, says CEO Henning Aandal. “We hope to be able to run the route in less than 24 hours, a few hours faster than trains currently running.”
The NRE is an import transport route for consumer goods, which head north towards Narvik, as well as fish, which are transported southward. Onrail says that they have deals with various interested shippers. “DB Schenker will transport large volumes with our train and we have signed agreements with other transport buyers for train freight between Oslo and Narvik.”
Service improvement
Onrail seeks to improve rail transportation on the route by using two locomotives and having fewer driver changes.
“We will eventually run with two locomotives in each train to reduce the risk of disturbances, to be able to transport more seafood, to be able to quickly climb the slopes on the Ofotbanen and on the Stambanan through Övre Norrland and to be able to accelerate a little faster after all the train encounters”, CEO Henning Aandal says.
Aandal adds that Onrail intends to employ drivers on longer sections of the route than its competitor Cargonet. “We will employ Swedish train drivers for the intermediate section, but we want to have as few train driver changes as possible to reduce the driving time between Oslo and Narvik”, he says.
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