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.

According to the company, an undisclosed number of private companies in a “large industrial group” succeeded in annulling a 2021 government decision to raise rail tariffs. A court document reveals that one of the suing companies is DTEK Zahidenergo, a Ukrainian energy company.

In the 2021 government decision, the Ministry of Infrastructure changed the tariff coefficient from 2,204 to 2,402 for first class cargo. This class primarily includes raw materials, according to a Ukrainian publication.

Ukrainian Railways to appeal decision

The Kyiv court is now also looking into two more related cases, says Ukrainian Railways. However, the company is not waiting around and announced that it is appealing the court’s annulment of the 2021 tariff decision. It argues that the court did not evaluate the legality of the measure, but rather the political expediency of it. Ukrainian Railways says that the court overstepped its boundaries and will appeal the decision.

Kazakh publication Kursiv explains that the price limits are used to calculate the fees. In practice, KTZ plans to increase its rail freight fees by 40 per cent in 2024. In 2023, the rail operator raised fees by three times. Infrastructure fees increased by 33 per cent, and fees on locomotive traction increased by 11,4 per cent. In total, rail freight fees doubled between 2016 and 2024.

Broad criticism

Kazakh Railways has faced criticism for its frequent price increases. Earlier, Kazakh parliamentarians called for extensive reforms in the company, which include removing infrastructure management from its competencies. Kazakh exporters have expressed concerns about their competitiveness when confronted with growing transportation costs. They are also concerned about possible loss of sales markets and lower production volumes.

Kazakh parliamentarians came out in support of the exporters. “The logic of such frequent fee increases looks quite strange in light of recent announcements by the management of KTZ about the fourfold growth in revenue in the past year,” say parliamentarians. They also point out that Kazakhstan has given discounts to foreign companies on the Kazakh rail network.

Outstanding debt

KTZ refers to its debt situation as the primary reason for additional price increases. The company has an outstanding debt of 2,9 trillion tenge, nearly 6 billion euros. The price hikes are supposed to raise the company’s income to 535 billion Kazakh tenge, up from 137 billion. This amounts to approximately one billion euros. KTZ plans to spend a third of that income on paying off its debt.

With the support of the newly installed prime minister Olzhas Bektenov, it looks like the government will approve KTZ’s request for an increase in price limits. “Kazakh fees are the lowest in comparison to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union and Commonwealth of Independent States, which makes it profitable for exporters of neighbouring countries, as well as those importing raw materials at low rail prices. That has led to a loss of 329 billion tenge (675 million euros) for KTZ in 2023.”

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