The freight railway company, DB Cargo has introduced new connections in the two largest ports of Europe, Rotterdam and Antwerp.
From December, these new daily connections will link the western ports with major economic hubs in Germany. From next year, the transport volume on these connections is due to grow by around 100,000 containers per year.
The new departures from the western ports alone will take 70,000 lorries off the roads, relieving both infrastructure and the environment, according to Sigrid Nikutta, board member for freight transport at Deutsche Bahn and CEO of DB Cargo, who said, “We are constructing the same kind of connections for our customers in Antwerp and Rotterdam that have proven so successful for many years in other ports like Hamburg.”
DB Cargo and its subsidiary TFG Transfracht are putting more goods on the rails, with daily connections to all important terminals at the ports, from where, customer goods are transported onwards in both combined transport and single wagon freight.
DB Cargo believes that even sectors with fluctuating volumes, such as the chemicals industry, can take advantage of the new connections.
Cargo volumes are transported from the ports and bundled at Kijfhoek, The Netherlands, whose largest shunting yard is ideally located between Antwerp and Rotterdam. Then, the cargo is taken to its destination overnight by fast direct trains.
The ports at Antwerp and Rotterdam handle 27 million TEU per year but only around 8-11% of the freight processed here arrives by rail. It is a different story at Europe’s third-largest port in Hamburg, where trains bring over half of the cargo handled, noted DB Cargo.
