WIf you want to see the future of rail freight transport, you have to go to Hamm. The former marshalling yard there was once the largest in Germany with a track length of 325 kilometers. Innovative loading technology is now to move into the huge site by 2026. A project with exemplary character, a prime example of rail logistics, as Deutsche Bahn’s freight transport subsidiary, DB Cargo, enthuses.
According to plans, the future traffic hub called Multi Hub Westfalen will connect rail, road and waterways on an area of 60 hectares. And thus save 170,000 truck journeys a year, as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, then Minister of Transport, calculated in October 2021 when the declaration of intent for the construction was signed. It is a project that aims to demonstrate that freight transport by rail is alive again and growing. That was not the case for decades, quite the opposite.
But the truth is also: Essential parts of freight transport are currently hardly competitive. Transport by rail may be climate-friendly, but it is often much more complicated and expensive than using trucks. This applies in particular to the “single-wagon system”, which worries both the market leader DB Cargo and its competitors and accounts for around 18 percent of rail freight transport.
This involves the transport of smaller shipments. For a long time, the train was considered the best means of transport for bulky goods, such as a long coal train. But the industry also wants to transport small consignments, in small groups of wagons or even just in individual wagons. If things go well, i.e. many individual shipments are bundled in the same direction, the trains can be up to 740 meters long – and thus replace up to 52 trucks. At the end of the journey, they are “unbundled” and distributed to different recipients.
1.4 billion euros in four years
That sounds good, but has become increasingly unprofitable in the past because it was no longer worthwhile to access the many small connections. That’s why the state has to step in now: at the urging of the industry, the Federal Ministry of Transport is providing 1.4 billion euros in subsidies over the four years. In addition, there are 680 million euros for the promotion of train path prices. “Individual wagon traffic cannot currently be operated economically, primarily due to the high vehicle, time and personnel costs, but it is of crucial importance for rail freight traffic, especially for key industries such as the steel and chemical industries,” said the Federal Ministry of Transport.
Around 1,300 sidings are currently being served, 900 other currently unused loading points are to receive new offers and even more new connections are to be created. “Here and elsewhere, it has now been recognized that downsizing is not the solution. If you drain the small streams, at some point the big river will also run out of water,” says the NEE industry association.
In the midst of climate change, the federal government wants to give the railways priority again in the new millennium. The ambitions are high for passenger transport as well as for freight transport. Politicians and the railways want to double the number of ICE passengers this year.
And raise the market share of freight transport in a comparison of modes of transport from the current 20 percent to 25 percent by 2030 – the industry itself even expects 35 percent by 2035. This means that the still rapidly growing goods transport must grow much more strongly on rail than on road. Experts also expect there to be a significantly higher number of trucks in the future. According to a long-term forecast by the Federal Ministry of Transport, it will increase by 54 percent by 2051, and freight traffic by rail by around a third.
AI becomes an integral part
More individual wagons are not the only driver that should bring more impetus to rail freight transport. A technology such as the Digital Automatic Coupling, DAK for short, should also contribute to this. Up to now – i.e. for more than 100 years – screw couplings have been used almost exclusively in rail freight transport. To connect wagons, shunting workers have to place a 20-kilogram bracket on the hook of the next wagon, a lengthy and not entirely harmless process.
The DAC, on the other hand, automatically connects freight wagons with each other without any manual work. This allows trains to be put together more quickly and become longer and faster. However, this is not for free. The conversion costs of a single freight car are estimated at 15,000 to 17,000 euros. With a view to around 63,000 DB freight cars in Germany, these costs can quickly reach a stately amount in the billions.
Deutsche Bahn also wants to make greater use of artificial intelligence in its day-to-day operations. “From now on, artificial intelligence will become an integral part of our operations. It helps us to get more freight wagons and thus more freight onto the climate-friendly rails,” announced Sigrid Nikutta, DB Group Board Member for Freight Transport, on Wednesday. With the help of a camera bridge, which optically records passing freight trains from all sides, damage can be detected at an early stage and cargo can be scanned. The images are analyzed by an AI application and provide information on the condition of the wagon and load. This helps to repair freight wagons more efficiently and quickly.
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