Belgium has a new rail freight association, aptly named the “Belgian Rail Freight Association” (BRFA). What are the priorities of this new organisation, what does it want to achieve for the freight train business?
BRFA follows in the footsteps of the Belgian Rail Freight Forum, a no longer existing platform that promoted rail freight in government circles and among other stakeholders. The new association intends to do things differently, by only protecting the interests of the rail freight industry itself. It will advocate for the interests of its members.
“The idea is that if rail freight is doing well (financially), then the rest will follow. That is: a positive impact on the environment, lower energy use by the transport sector, fewer accidents, noise disturbances, et cetera”, BRFA explains to RailFreight.com.
The association lists five key priorities: reducing track access charges (TAC) to zero, changing track occupation charges “to reflect business reality”, creating parking facilities for electric locomotives, setting up new rail training facilities and supporting single wagonload operations.
TACs
Reducing track access charges to zero seems far off, especially when looking at trends in other European countries. However, says BRFA, the Belgian government now compensates about 50% of TACs, and more intervention seems possible “for as far as European rules relating to state support allow for it.” The total cost is limited – a maximum of 25 million euros per year to reduce TACs to null.
The second point on the list – track occupation charges – reflects a curious situation on the railways. Companies need to pay charges for leaving rolling stock standing still on rail infrastructure, regardless of the underlying reason for it. BRFA wants to differentiate between cases where wagons are standing still because they cannot reach their destinations and those cases where companies are simply parking them for a long time. The incurred parking costs need to be charged to shippers, which seems unfair when there are external factors at play.
Single wagonload
Then there is the single wagonload-question, a hot topic right now in Europe. BRFA says that it wants to support those operations. That stands in remarkable contrast to their neighbouring counterparts in the Netherlands, which are opposed to support for SWL.
BRFA acknowledges that it is a difficult topic in Belgium too. “All rail freight companies agree that SWL is too expensive and that support is desirable. This could be financial support or investment support in SWL-infrastructure, but also by changing the legal framework.”
“Is it necessary to work with expensive (ECTS) locomotives at shunting yards?”, BRFA wonders. “Can this not be done in a more simple way, with fewer rules? Besides that, the (government) rail sector is a mostly engineer-driven business, with little consideration for the costs”, says BRFA, referring to the development of the Digital Automatic Coupler as an illustrative example. It leads to more costs and fewer gains, according to the association.
“We agree among each other that SWL has to be reformed. Shippers too have a role to play here and should adapt to the changed circumstances. However, only a few of our members are active in SWL, and it is therefore not a top priority at BRFA.”