DB Cargo announces new connections to Rotterdam and Antwerp

Credit: DB Cargo - Oliver Lang.

DB Cargo has announced that it is set to offer new rail freight connections to and from Europe’s two largest ports in Rotterdam and Antwerp. From December 2020, these new daily connections will link the western ports with the most important economic hubs in Germany. From 2021, the transport volume on these connections is due to grow by around 100,000 containers per year.

Dr Sigrid Nikutta, Board Member for Freight Transport at Deutsche Bahn (DB) and CEO of DB Cargo, said: “We are constructing the same kind of connections for our customers in Antwerp and Rotterdam that have proven so successful for many years in other ports like Hamburg. We are ready! The new departures from the western ports alone will take 70,000 lorries off the roads, relieving both infrastructure and the environment.”

Credit: DB Cargo

DB Cargo and its subsidiary, TFG Transfracht, are putting more goods on the rails, with daily connections to all important terminals at the ports. From here, customer goods are transported onwards in both combined transport and single wagon freight. Even sectors with fluctuating volumes, such as the chemicals industry, can take advantage of the new connections.

Cargo volumes are transported from the ports and bundled at Kijfhoek. The Netherlands’ largest shunting yard is ideally located between Antwerp and Rotterdam. From here, the cargo is taken to its destination overnight by fast direct trains.

The ports at Antwerp and Rotterdam handle 27 million containers per year. But only around eight to 11 per cent of the freight processed here arrives by rail. It is a different story at Europes third-largest port in Hamburg, where trains bring over half of the cargo handled.