“The Port of Moerdijk welcomes the commitments from the national government to invest substantially in rail projects that strengthen the logistical clout of the port”, the port said at the time. The investments “underline the importance of the Port of Moerdijk as a vital gateway to the hinterland.”

Start in late 2025

The port is aiming for a Q4 start of the pilot. However, that also depends on the availability of a battery locomotive and the required permits. Arno van Deursen, project manager at the Port of Moerdijk, explains that the port wants to see the battery locomotive in action in order to assess its power usage, ease of use and its performance compared to diesel locomotives. Additionally, the pilot should give an indication of the reduction in nitrogen emissions. Environmental regulations now preclude the construction of 740-metre rail yard infrastructure, but lower emissions could make that possible.

But, for the Port of Moerdijk, there is an important -and unintended- added benefit: the pilot may help put shunting issues on the agenda. Van Deursen explains that the port’s rail infrastructure is all considered to be mainline rails. As a consequence, locomotives operating in the port need to be cleared for the entire network. “That means higher requirements for the locomotive, which makes them more expensive.”

Opening up possibilities

A battery-only locomotive cleared for the entire network will be quite costly. “For Moerdijk, testing the zero-emission shunting locomotive is an opportunity to highlight this issue. If the port’s rail infrastructure would no longer be considered mainline rail, then it would open up new locomotive possibilities.” In other words, a locomotive that is cheaper in use and in terms of purchasing price and maintenance could then be an option – including more sustainable alternatives.

“This connection represents a significant step in strengthening commercial ties between
the Netherlands and Italy, perfectly aligning with our objective of optimizing our
customers’ supply chains,” commented Andrea Spagnuolo, Sales and Business Development Manager at Contship.

Strategic choice

Contship points out that the choice for Moerdijk is a strategic one. “As a multimodal hub located within a port boasting over 40 kilometres of roads and 35 kilometres of rail tracks, it enjoys a privileged position offering further connections to various destinations in the United Kingdom.”

The 1,161,000 euro investment will come from the national government (around 580,000 euros), the port itself (approximately 475,000 euros) and infrastructure manager ProRail (around 106,000 euros). The money will allow for continuous use of a last-mile track that boosts throughput capacity and enables companies to join the modal shift.

Moreover, the port will grow capacity at its shunting yard and the rail line to Lage Zwaluwe, a nearby town. Lastly, the port is considering a new rail connection on the west side of the port.

The short-sea Moerdijk port plays an important role in European rail freight. “Improving the rail infrastructure in Moerdijk is essential to support the port’s further growth and to make it more sustainable”, the port says.

Zero-emission shunting

The port will also be the site of a zero-emission shunting pilot. The project has an allocated budget of 665,000 euros. “The so-called Zero Emission Shunting can provide a significant contribution to making rail freight more sustainable”, comments the port. “The pilot is aimed at the use of a zero-emission shunting locomotive for last-mile rail freight.”

The pilot will last for two months, which should then provide some insight into how much emissions can be reduced by various technologies. The tests with a battery-powered locomotive will take place in the port, as well as between Lage Zwaluwe and the shunting yard.

Helping modal shift

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has made 7,260,000 euros available because the use of longer freight trains will make rail transport cheaper in the long run and thus contribute to the ‘modal shift’ from road to rail in the corridor. The investment will be spread over the next three to four years.

Automation and signalling

CCT’s renovation was all about accessing the terminal for trains. The port of Moerdijk, the largest inland port in the Netherlands, has sufficient road and rail infrastructure that cross routes at multiple points. As a result, the port infrastructure has level crossings where trains must pass through and sometimes wait on them, thus unnecessarily stopping car traffic and sometimes waiting too long to enter the CCT terminal.

As a result, the project’s partners decided to resolve this bottleneck by fitting three railway crossings with an automated safety system. Specifically, they deployed a “train warning system consisting of command control and audible and visual signalling components” also linked with the traffic lights of the ring road around the port and CCT’s gate.

Understandably, the investment will contribute to syncing the port’s safety and signalling operations into one comprehensive system, which will also improve time management and provide more rail capacity indirectly. “If a train approaches the CCT terminal, the driver will open the gate to the terminal with a push of a button and then activate the level crossing with a push of a button. Road traffic then gets a red light, and the bars go down. The freight train can then safely pass the level crossings and directly enter the terminal site through the open gate. Thanks to the link with the gate, the train can drive through in one go and does not unnecessarily occupy the level crossings,” explained the port of Moerdijk.

More rail needs investments

“The renovation contributes to greater railway capacity and supports the ‘modal shift’ which the port of Moerdijk advocates to increase via water and rail transport. For us, rail is an important addition to our shortsea strategy,” said Marika Menspoel-den Hartog, directorate of the Moerdijk Port Authority.

Indeed, as mentioned before, the Dutch port has strong ambitions for its rail products and has invested before concerning the rail freight industry. Its main goal is to receive around and maybe more than a hundred weekly trains. For this reason, in early 2021, a third 740-metre-long track was added to CCT’s infrastructure. Moreover, the port, along with ProRail, railway undertakings, terminals and customers, have launched the Lean Moerdijk 2.0 project to improve capacity planning and allocation since the port’s rail infrastructure prospects are very particular and need optimal utilisation. Hopefully, the signalling and accessibility investments will add another stone to what the port aims to build regarding rail freight transport.

Also read:

• Port of Moerdijk wants to run 100 trains per week after summer

• Port of Moerdijk wants to grow by planning smarter

• Lineas expands services from the North Sea Port with connection to Milano

On the occasion of the Connecting Europe Express’ arrival in Rotterdam and Antwerp this week, the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO), the European Rail Infrastructure Manager (EIM), the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) and the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure (CER) jointly call for more attention to rail-port connectivity.

Not only the big ones

“Connections to the ports are a very good example of how the network can be improved. Not only to the large ports, but also to the smaller ports”, said Herald Ruijters, director at the European Commission, DG MOVE, responsible for investments, innovative and sustainable transport while speaking in the conference coach of the train.

“The Netherlands has a clear advantage with its ports. Therefore, I hope that intermodal is at the heart of the Dutch transport policy. The Dutch are experts in logistics, and they have the ability to combine road, rail and maritime”, emphasised also Kristian Schmidt, director of land transport at DG MOVE.

Modal split hinterland

Some seaports experience close to 50 per cent modal split towards rail, while others have much lower percentages of rail in their hinterland transportation. Taking Rotterdam and Antwerp as an example, the Dutch port has a rail share of ten per cent, and the port of Antwerp even seven per cent.

Improving the port-rail connections on a wider scale, both in terms of infrastructure and operations, is therefore crucial to increase the share of cargo transported by rail, the EU organisations stated. “The Connecting Europe Facility II should particularly promote rail projects, which improve the connectivity to and from Europe’s seaports, as improved linkage will bring direct efficiency gains for a large share of rail freight.”

Funding welcome

Monika Heiming, Executive Director of EIM commented: “Infrastructure managers consider rail-port connectivity as an essential tool to create the much-needed modal shift for freight, in order to reply to the ambitious environmental policies of the European Commission. The funding opportunities for strategic investments in rail-port connections under the new Connecting Europe Facility II are therefore much welcomed. Infrastructure managers will continue to improve the coordination between rail and ports with all stakeholders involved.”

Isabelle Ryckbost, Secretary-General of ESPO stated: “Improving the last-mile should be a first priority for getting more goods on rail, in terms of interoperability, data exchange, operations and infrastructure. In Europe we see a wide diversity of rail management systems in European ports. We need a level-playing-field and equal access to public funding for the necessary infrastructure investments, regardless of whether the port managing body or the national rail infrastructure manager is responsible for the rail infrastructure inside the port.”

Rail has momentum

According to Gilbert Bal, responsible for the rail freight product at the port of Rotterdam, rail has momentum now. “Customers are asking for the rail product. Since I started this position two years ago, 77 roundtrips were added to our portfolio”, he said while the Connecting Europe Express moved from Rotterdam to Antwerp. When asked in which sense the infrastructure could be approved, he pointed to track quality and the ability to run longer trains.

Also on the train was Ferdinand van den Oever, CEO of the port of Moerdijk, a port that relies heavily on rail. “We are trying to position ourselves between two giants (Rotterdam, Antwerp), and in doing so, rail freight connections combined with short-sea connections are key to survival”, he noted. The port wants to grow from sixty to seventy trains a week to about a hundred. Later this year, it will have three tracks of 740 meters each to facilitate longer trains, a key development for more volumes on rail.

Better access

Conor Feighan, Secretary General of ERFA commented: “In order for rail freight to become more attractive to end users, rail freight undertakings must have access to a good quantity and quality of capacity. As key gateways for freight, it is therefore essential that ports have infrastructure in place which facilitates the development of a competitive rail freight market.”

Dr. Alberto Mazzola, Executive Director of CER concluded: “Integrated and efficient connections between ports and rail infrastructure, both in Europe and in third countries are crucial to achieve the modal shift targets necessary for decarbonising transport. Improvement of last-mile connections must be accompanied by interoperable freight standards on the network and the revision of the TEN-T Regulation is an opportunity to close the gaps and bring ports and rail corridors closer together.”

Strong trailer trend

Alexander Ochs, managing director at Kombiverkehr, underlined that the intermodal “trailer trend continues unabated in the market”. On top of that, he expects that the numbers of semi-trailers transported by rail will continue rising in the specific corridor. As a result, the frequency increase between Ludwigshafen and Barcelona Morrot is an early measure to keep up with the growth rates.

“We are expanding our capacity for trailer transport by more than 30 per cent not only with new train departures but also through the greater use of T3000 mega trailer double pocket wagons for semitrailers with a clear interior height of three metres,” explained Ochs.

Gateway corridor

The fourth weekly train will depart from Ludwigshafen every Tuesday and return from Barcelona every Thursday. The Morrot terminal in Barcelona is a critical location positioned in the city’s port and providing full transhipment possibilities. However, the service’s benefits do not reduce to that.

Ludwigshafen’s hub function and interconnectivity is Kombiverkehr’s main focus in this case. “The integration of Ludwigshafen into the Duisburg Ruhrort Hafen gateway hub, the innovative rapid-transfer facility in Hannover Lehrte and Moerdijk in the Netherlands enable us to offer a large number of rapid onward connections, particularly those serving Scandinavia and the Baltic states. With Kombiverkehr and the ferry services of our shipping partners, Sweden, Finland, and Lithuania can now be reached from Spain by train and ferry,” concluded Ochs.

Also read: 

• Kombiverkehr offers new route München-Wels
• Kombiverkehr ramps up operations through MegaHub Lehrte
• Kombiverkehr trains from Mortara also to Dutch hub Venlo

Earlier expansion

The ambition of the port to increase its rail transportation share is not new. In April, it opened a new terminal, operated by Combined Cargo Terminals. More than 20 million euros has been invested in broader facilities for freight trains on the Moerdijk industrial estate.

Among other things, the two existing tracks were replaced by three new ones, which are 740 meters long. An extra switch connection and a ‘reversing track’ were added: previously, trains were pushed in, which took a lot of time. In the new terminal, the locomotive disconnects from the wagons after entering and drives away again on the third track.

The port of Moerdijk

The port of Moerdijk, situated in the province Zuid-Holland in the Netherlands, is active in short-sea, inland shipping, rail and road, for various customers. It has a short-sea connection to the UK, and many of the goods that arrive in the port of Moerdijk are moved further into Europe by rail.

More destinations

Apart from the destinations mentioned above, other hubs could also benefit from the new rail link. Specifically, Rotterdam and Moerdijk in the Netherlands, Duisburg in Germany, and Antwerp in Belgium can also acquire access to South-Eastern Europe through Austria. Consequently, we see a significant extension of Hupac’s intermodal network in this sense.

Moerdijk-Geleen

Geleen is a small town in the South of the Netherlands, close to the city of Maastricht. It has the Rail Terminal Chemelot that includes an industrial site. In 2019, Hupac acquired the majority of the terminal’s company, and in the spring of 2020, it launched a direct connection with the port of Moerdijk. The service between the two dutch sites runs three times per week. From Geleen, there are rail connections with Padova and Busto Arzisio in Italy. Moerdijk also connects with the United Kingdom via a shortsea line.

On top of that, Moerdijk also presents an intense activity during the past few months. At the beginning of February, it became part of Lineas’ Green Xpress network. Moreover, with the numbers of handled trains almost doubling during the last two years, and with a planned extension of the track at its Combined Cargo Terminal (CCT), Moerdijk looks in the future with ambition. According to the port’s officials, they aim to handle a hundred weekly trains after summer 2021.

Read also:

• Hupac launches new train connection Moerdijk-Geleen in the Netherlands
• Lineas adds port of Moerdijk to Green Xpress network
• Port of Moerdijk wants to run 100 trains per week after summer

“With this expansion we can increase the rail freight volumes from Moerdijk to the European hinterland. Rail is very suitable for quickly depositing large amounts of freight over long distances. Moreover, the costs are more profitable and it has a smaller CO2 footprint, ”says Baladien.

Sustainability strategy

This means that rail also fits well in the sustainability strategy of the Port of Moerdijk, which aims to be the most sustainable port in the Netherlands by 2030. To this end, the so-called Rail Freight Table was created in 2015, where all stakeholders – ranging from shippers and customers to ProRail – come together to think about ways to make even better use of the railways.

“You don’t just realise growth. Good coordination is very important. For example, you must have the right rail capacity in the right places. With the extra tracks, we will soon have more buffer moments. In addition, we worked with ProRail on fine-tuning our planning”, Baladien says about the work of the group.

In this way, rail can keep pace with the growth ambitions of the Port of Moerdijk. The port already has a million square metres of large-scale warehousing, but another million square metres can be added. “If you want to facilitate that, the rail infrastructure has to grow with it”, says Baladien. The commercial manager emphasises the importance of expectation management. “The stakeholders and those involved must understand from each other what can be done now and what needs to be done in the longer term.”

New regular link to Antwerp

In this sense, the new scheduled intermodal cargo service between the port of Moerdijk and Antwerp, introduced earlier this month by the Belgian rail freight operator Lineas, is a welcome development. The freight train runs three times a week. In addition, Lineas is increasing the frequency of transport between Rotterdam and Antwerp to eight return journeys per week. The new scheduled service will enable carriers and shippers to move intermodal volumes three times a week between Port of Moerdijk and Lineas’ Main Hub in Antwerp. The line has a total transport capacity of 270 TEU per week. Via the Antwerp hub, freight can be shipped by rail throughout Europe via Lineas’s Green Xpress Network.

“We are pleased that Lineas has chosen Moerdijk and that there is a frequent connection. We want to be fast and reliable and that includes such connections”, says Baladien. “We strive for such an extensive network of destinations. The more destinations, the easier it is to bundle goods and ensure that you are as effective as possible.”

Baladien expects many more connections to be added in the long term, although that is not an end in itself. It is just as important to maintain or expand the frequency on the connections. “Everything must show that we are seriously connected with the hinterland.”