{"id":152369,"date":"2024-11-27T20:19:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T10:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=58183"},"modified":"2024-11-27T20:19:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T10:19:44","slug":"disastrous-start-to-80-weeks-of-dutch-german-border-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=152369","title":{"rendered":"Disastrous start to 80 weeks of Dutch-German border works"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t even get the rail freight operators started. They are furious about the first three weeks of the 80-week period, during which work is being done on the track in Germany that connects to the Dutch Betuwe line. “We still have 77 weeks to go”, sighs a manager of customer service and planning of freight carrier Rail Force One.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>The 80-week period began on 1 November with a three-week long total closure of the \u201cHollandstrecke\u201d, which meant that all freight transport had to take place over (mainly) the Brabant line and (to a lesser extent) the Bentheim line. Those first three weeks were also extended by a day. The work was not ready on time. Then a long night was lost due to the repair of broken rails between Helmond and Venlo. And to make matters worse, there were strikes at the traffic controllers of Dutch infrastructure manager ProRail.<\/p>\n

It was therefore not a good start to the 80-week period, says Hans-Willem Vroon, director of rail freight branch organisation RailGood. \u201cAnd then there was also a little incident in Germany\u201d, he says. \u201cThere was also no train traffic possible between Venlo and Viersen for almost 24 hours, due to security problems at the Kaldenkirchen traffic control post. Mechanics got to work on it, worked until a quarter to one at night, but were unable to solve the problem and simply went home. It was not until 8 o’clock the next morning that a new team arrived to look into the problem. In the meantime, trains were buffered or held at their departure station. Terrible!\u201d<\/p>\n