Eventually, the new German track – 73 km-long and costed at €1.5B – will hook up with the Betuweroute at the German/ Dutch border near Zevenaar and will end in Oberhausen, a major railway intersection, just north of Duisburg, providing rail access to the whole of Germany.

The first spade ceremony featured the start of a new viaduct, one of a total 47 viaducts or bridges that need to be widened or entirely rebuilt to provide total grade separation.

As previously discussed, a third completely grade-separated railway track is needed because the existing two mixed passenger/freight tracks in the Oberhausen/Monchengladbach area are congested and there are multiple at grade crossings, so it is difficult to provide a smooth transit for freight trains between Rotterdam and the Ruhr area. Hence, part of the container and bulk rail freight that would ideally move over the fully electrified Betuweroute will continue to be diverted via alternative tracks in the south and north of the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, competition from road mode is set to get stiffer. NRW has done a complete Uturn and dropped its objections to 25.25m-long (3 TEU) drawbars, known as eco-combis or gigaliners.

As previously reported, the federal government in Berlin has declared gigaliners safe and costeffective, although some länder, including NRW, had been holding out. NRW is the by far the most important state for goods traffic between the ARAZ seaports and the continental hinterland. Not only is Duisburg in NRW, but as this state almost completely abuts the eastern borders of the Netherlands and Belgium, all trucking to and from the rest of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland has to move through it en route to/from ARAZ.

There are no generalised permits for gigaliners in Belgium, but the Netherlands was the first country in continental Europe to adopt them, several years ago, so there should be no problem in gigaliners with German o/d cargo moving on Dutch roads, unless the Dutch authorities become concerned about the numbers using the country’s (mostly) two lane motorways.

Two other German states that have so far banned 25.25m gigaliner trials – Rheinland Pfalz (RLP) and Saarland – are also now believed to be moving in favour of the ecocombis. Especially RLP, directly south of NRW, is pivotal. This state not only includes Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Mainz, but needs to be crossed to access Baden-Wurttemberg (BW). BW includes Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. RLP is also important for ports in North East France, but there is no particular enthusiasm in France for 25.25m-long rigs.

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This complete item is approximately 300 words in length, and appeared in the February 2017 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 16. To access this issue download the PDF here.