The Netherlands has requested European partners along the North Sea-Baltic Corridor to follow Dutch footsteps and conduct a study into the needs for unhindered passage of military freight. “These times demand resilient rail”, the state secretary argued.
The Dutch State Secretary for Public Transport and Environment, Thierry Aartsen, has reached out to some of his European colleagues with a clear request: figure out what needs to happen to let military trains drive unhindered.
“These times demand resilient railways that can withstand the growth of military transport”, Aartsen explained. “Much military equipment enters Europe through Dutch ports. The North Sea-Baltic Corridor is the most obvious route for eastbound transportation.”
“It is important that military transports do not encounter any bottlenecks”, Aartsen continued. “European cooperation is enormously important for that.”
Military transport simulations
Aartsen’s appeal was addressed to colleagues in Belgium, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all countries that are involved with the North-Sea Baltic Corridor. It has over 9,000 kilometres of rail infrastructure, and over 82,000 trains ran along the corridor last year.
Recently, the Netherlands itself conducted a study into the removal of bottlenecks for military rail transportation. It found that measures are needed to make the railways more resilient and suitable for military freight. The study suggested a minimum investment of 600 million euros into physical infrastructure and the improvement of security systems and processes.
The Dutch government is currently working to implement priority access for military transportation on the railways. That should prevent military trains from having to stop at the border due to paperwork. The infrastructure and defense ministries, together with infrastructure manager ProRail, are working to simulate military transports to identify bottlenecks. They are also working on a resilience strategy to curb hybrid threats.