Rail freight cannot yet compete with road transport in terms of speed, but, as it is the most economical way to transport goods for the end customer, benefit which implies lower costs, rail transport overruns road transport, especially over long distances. Bulk goods, including coal, grains, steel and other heavy duty loads are well suited to rail freight transport.
I n the European freight transport sector, the highest market share goes to bulk goods transport. Steel industry, mining or constructions are the sectors which form the bulk transport market. Grains also have a significant share. In the past two years, rail freight transport has been seriously affected by the economic recession and in the chemical, concrete and steel industries, the number of orders have plummeted which has also had repercussions on the bulk goods transport on rails. Positive results have been noticed in the oil industry where transport demand has been a bit higher, logistics experts believe. The drop in freight transport volumes has reached 15% in the economic downturn years, which made the bulk transport fall back to the 2005 levels. DB Shencker Rail experts have that logistics market services fell 8.5% in 2009. Better news comes from the port area. It seems that hinterland container transport from ports towards eastern and southern Europe will gain further importance. As soon as the economy rebounds, efficient and flexible handling of that traffic will be a key asset. “Bulk commodities are often one of the best freight sectors for transport by rail rather than road. The key is to have convenient terminals at both ends of the journey for easy loading and unloading, and to design the flow so that one achieves the maximum output in terms of wagon and locomotive usage. That means keeping the equipment moving and earning revenue, rather than doing one journey a week and leaving it idle the remainder of the time. It also means having good paths on the network, and avoiding long waits to allow passenger trains to pass”, declared for Railway Pro, Lord Tony Berkeley, President Rail Freight Group.
In Romania, one of the problems which weighs bulk goods transport and, in fact, freight transport in general, is the limited number of terminals available to rail freight transport operators and logistics services suppliers. Present in Constanţa, on the 5th and 6th of April, 2011, for the conference “Role of railway transport in developing competitive logistics solutions”, organised by Club Feroviar and the Romanian Railway Industry Association (AIF), some transport operators and logistics suppliers complained, among others, that they don’t benefit from non-discriminatory access to the terminals owned by CFR Marfă.
by Elena Ilie
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