Dedicated European freight railway
Rail is ideal for the rapid transport of large quantities of cargo to (more distant) destinations in continental Europe.
Rotterdam offers plenty of room for further growth in rail transport:
- Dedicated Betuweroute freight railway links the port directly with Germany, over a length of 160 kilometres. The best guarantee for just-in-time delivery.
- Transit times are short and vary from less than 12 hours for destinations in Belgium and Germany to 48 hours for the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland.
- Dozens of trains a day arrive at or depart from the port, carrying every conceivable type of cargo: from cars, refrigerated cargo and heavy equipment to special shipments.
- Intensive cooperation with Duisburg. Read more about this in our Container Special (page 20 - 21)
Private parties are developing plenty of new initiatives for transporting containers.
To facilitate this, Rotterdam offers hundreds of shuttle connections a week with economic centres throughout Europe.
Even more advantages:
- Central arrival and departure point for container shuttles: the non-stop Rail Service Centres operate 24 hours a day. They are located in the vicinity of the big container terminals.
- From Rail Chemical Centres, chemicals are transported by train quickly, safely and in an environmentally-friendly way.
- Quintessential bulk port: efficient transport of bulk cargo such as iron ore and coal, whatever the quantity. 28 trains a week carry, for example, around 5.5 million tonnes of iron ore from the EMO terminal to Dillinger Hütte in Germany’s Saar area.
