Based on the above data, nearly half of all freight trains in the Netherlands (those in the 601 to 1,600 bracket in 2025) would see their TACs grow by around 44%. Heavier freight trains, between 1,601 and 3,200 tonnes in 2025, would be subject to a 19% increase. Those are big jumps. However, the bad news does not end there: Traction prices for electricity will also increase by around 41%.

There is, despite the bad news, also an upside to the story: parking and shunting fees will shrink by 13% to 43%, rail freight association RailGood points out on LinkedIn.

But alas, there is a setback for rail freight here too. Intermodal operators will have to start paying almost three times as much in annual rent for long non-electrified sidings, where they set up their spare sets of wagons. “Spare sets are needed to cope with the dynamics of the transport chain and provide customers with a still somewhat acceptable delivery time and reliability”, RailGood elaborates. “That is necessary because of the many works and infrastructure disruptions on the railways.” And what’s more, the Dutch infrastructure ministry will also stop its subsidies on these infrastructure fees from 2026 onwards.

There might be a good reason for these growing charges. After all, infrastructure managers need money to maintain and improve the rail network. However, RailGood does not see any qualitative improvement, which is reasonably to be expected. Besides the growing TACs, the association also condemns the still exorbitantly high parking and shunting fees, which are not nearly seen at similar levels in Germany and Belgium, even with the planned fee reductions.

Crucially, there is a real risk that poor performance and high prices will lead rail freight to lose out to other modes of transportation: the notorious reverse modal shift. Despite that, there does not seem to be much interest on the side of the Dutch authorities, be it parliament or the ministry, to really invest in rail freight.

That is incomprehensible to RailGood: “Government parties feel there is no budget to reduce infrastructure charges for rail freight. There is money for everything, including at the Ministry of Infrastructure, but not for this.” Notably, the ministry decided to invest one billion euros in a highway from the Port of Rotterdam to Germany.

The Romanian experience

It is clear that the rail freight sector suffers from the soaring infrastructure charges. However, in the long run, it may very well have negative repercussions for the infrastructure manager itself as well. For example, Romania’s infrastructure CFR hiked infrastructure charges at a somewhat similar pace during the past couple of years.

TACs grew by 8% in 2023 and another 15% in 2024. Other service fees, such as shunting and parking, rose by up to 65% on 1 April 2025. In other words, the average rail operator could be paying 33,000 euros per month in fees in 2025, as opposed to 20,000 euros in 2024.

OPSFPR, the private rail freight association in Romania, concluded that the charge increases backfired on CFR. The infrastructure manager saw its March 2025 TAC revenues drop by more than 1,3 million euros compared to March 2023. The conclusion was that there is no long-term gain from these hikes, even if short-term revenue grows.

That does not mean that parliament wants 740-metre trains to become possible all across the country – it only singles out the Brabant, Betuwe and Bentheim routes. Those are crucial for freight traffic, especially from the Port of Rotterdam towards Germany. Fortunately, the Netherlands has already allocated money for those upgrades, but real work is lagging. In addition, the Dutch parliament calls upon the government to agree with Germany on cross-border coordination, especially in the direction of Poland and Czechia.

TACs and other fees

Besides 740-metre trains, there was a proposal on the table to return track access charges (TACs), as well as parking and shunting fees, to 2022 levels. “Rail freight has been shrinking for three years and its competitiveness is under pressure”, the parliamentary motion says. TACs have grown significantly since 2022 and will be much higher than in other countries until at least 2029.

Moreover, parking and shunting fees have multiplied six-fold since 2023. That is a major burden for the rail freight industry in the country financially, but also hinders a modal shift, because the road sector does not pay similar fees.

The TAC and fees proposal could not count on significant support in parliament. It fell short of a majority, getting only 45 votes out of the needed 76.