The latest round of Military Mobility funds provided by the EU Commission as part of CEF has been approved. Railway projects are once again highlighted. Of the 807 million euros released by the Commission, approximately 485 million euros will target railway infrastructure projects. Eight out of thirty-eight projects will also directly impact freight. According to […]
Category: Policy
Russia fears rail blockade and builds rail ferries for Kaliningrad
Fear of a rail blockade is leading Russia to build three additional rail ferries for its Kaliningrad exclave. The country’s westernmost region is surrounded by EU and NATO member states which control all railways into and out of the region. Russia is now looking to move its rail freight by sea in order to guarantee […]
CER urges for more pragmatism in rail capacity allocation
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 […]
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 […]