Europe is looking to boost its capacity to move military equipment and troops in large numbers. No single mode of transportation can do that alone, and therefore rail stands to play a key role in military operations. Yet, a panel discussion at the “Future of Rail Freight” event in Brussels revealed deeply rooted obstacles to military logistics on rail.
Gert Dobben, Head of Division Resources Support at the EU External Action Service’s Logistics Directorate, cut right to the chase. “The military can’t operate without the civil world”, he said. “What we are concerned about is that, with a large-scale conflict, we will need to move a lot of troops across the continent. How are we going to do that?”
Europe needs quite some resources to make that happen. “If we have to move 150 brigades, between 150,000 and 300,000 troops and their equipment, it won’t be possible to move all of that by road, air, sea or rail only. We will need thousands of 740-metre trains, if using only rail.” That won’t happen, because other transportation modes will also be used. Nevertheless, the point still stands. The military needs capacity on the rails.
An American armoured battalion on rail, Lithuania, 2019. Image: Shutterstock. © Karolis Kavolelis
The four key concerns
Dobben highlights four key concerns currently keeping military circles busy. For one, military transport will have to get “a bit more priority”, he says. Second, there is too little equipment, which Europe will need to grow, and preferably fast.
Then there is the question of bureaucratic hurdles, the so-called red tape. “This is the reason why rail is not ‘sexy’ in the military”, explains Dobben. “Military trains are always the last kid on the block. For example, when France transported military equipment to Romania after the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, it was riddled with bureaucratic hurdles. A very problematic affair.
A case in point is the 302-form, which is needed to move military equipment. It is supposed to make transports through NATO countries easier, but it has become a “nightmare” now, explains Dobben. A single custom officer who does not know what to do with the form can stop a whole military convoy. That is something that happened when moving military equipment to the Dutch Caribbean islands, he adds, and he himself had to explain how to process the form to the customs officer.
Lastly, there is cybersecurity and communications. “This is also a concern when it comes to rail”, says Dobben. “We rely on digital solutions more and more, but we need to be realistic that without power, we’ll need to fall back on old-fashioned means of moving forward. Don’t rely only on electrical solutions. We also need diesel locomotives and hybrid solutions.”
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Private sector underlines issues
Some of the issues which Dobben outlined are confirmed by Marc Giesen, representing rail operator Hector Rail. “At a panel with the [German armed forces] Bundeswehr, they expressed similar concerns”, he says. The military is worried about DB Cargo’s performance, and they addressed smaller private companies, such as Giesen’s own Hector Rail, to jump into the military market as well.
And as an addition to Dobben’s 302-form story and example about the transport from France to Romania, Hector Rail has its own nightmare story on military transportation. The company transported military equipment from Finland to France, but faced massive issues in Denmark with the National Safety Authority.
Image: Shutterstock. © Markus Mainka
“The train was stopped three times because it lost things. Equipment was not secured the right way, causing a massive delay”, says Giesen. But what shocked Giesen mostly, was the keys to the equipment. “We had a big wooden box with keys for all the equipment. And that box was on one single wagon.” A serious security risk.
“Then the box was put on the locomotive, but you need different locomotives in different countries. So the box moved from locomotive to locomotive.” Giesen euphemistically concludes: “A normal intermodal train is easier to handle.”
Speaking on behalf of Austria’s Rail Cargo Group, CEO Clemens Först expressed worries about rolling stock, in particular flatbed wagons. “We need to have funding to get the rolling stock that we need”, Först says. “The heavy stuff is difficult, you need non-dual use rolling stock for it. There needs to be some sort of mechanism to forget about microeconomic realities for some time to create a military supply chain”, the CEO concludes.