The infrastructure managers and capacity allocation bodies put Rail Freight Corridor 2 on the tracks

Today, the infrastructure managers and capacity allocation bodies of the five countries through which passes Rail Freight Corridor 2 (Rotterdam/Antwerp – Luxembourg – Basel/Lyon) created the governance structure of this corridor.

Rail Freight Corridor 2: a European rail transport route

Rail Freight Corridor 2 links by the rail the main European ports (Rotterdam and Antwerp) to the industrial zones of Western Europe up to the gateways of Southern Europe (Switzerland, South of France, Spain and Italy).

This corridor is one of the main railway routes in Europe. It will be operational on 10 November 2013, in accordance with Regulation 913/2010/EU concerning a European rail network for competitive freight.

The ambitious aim of Rail Freight Corridor 2 is to enable rail transport to be more efficient and win market shares to the road. It is mainly on medium and long distances that it can become more competitive in comparison to road. International transport is therefore the natural scope of rail freight.

Rail Freight Corridor 2 is one of the most promissing rail corridor in Europe, with already more than 30 000 trains per year carrying more than 20 million tons on international relations.

An improved service for railway undertakings with the setting-up of a one-stop shop

Capacity allocation will then be one of the main tasks of the corridor and will allow for a better service for railway undertakings and authorized applicants. For example, to go from Rotterdam or Antwerp to Basel, these firms will only have one contact point, the Corridor One-stop shop.

On this occasion, the CEOs of the seven infrastructure managers and capacity allocation bodies all met together in Luxembourg

Marion Gout-van Sinderen, President Director of Prorail (Netherlands), Luc Lallemand, Chief Executive Officer of Infrabel (Belgium), Alex Kremer, General Director of Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (CFL), Marc Oestreicher, Director of Administration des Chemins de Fer (ACF, Luxembourg), Alain Quinet, Assistant General Director of Réseau Ferré de France (RFF), Philippe Gauderon, Chief of Infrastructure des Chemins de Fer Fédéraux (CFF/SBB, Switzerland), Thomas Isenmann, Director of Sillon Suisse (Trasse Schweiz).