Dear Customers,
The long-standing tense situation in the European rail network has already been generally accepted as the new normal. The chain of negative events, that have had a major impact on the transportation of the main European railway lines over the past year, continues to this day.
The previous year was very difficult for METRANS – as the railway carrier. A series of strikes at northern ports, uncoordinated closures, significantly limited capacities in the throughput of the railway infrastructure and the formation of further blockages on the main railway corridors in Central Europe and the Adriatic led to considerable complications in the planning of METRANS trains and, last but not least, to increased operating costs.
We reported in detail about the mentioned negative events in a couple of newsletters, e.g. no. 86, 89, 91, 101, 103, 113, 115/2024, also available at https://metrans.eu/media/news/.
Dealing with these problems, operational difficulties during transportation, is part of our job. Every negative externality in operation comes with significant additional costs, which we have absorbed in the past in order to ensure a high-quality intermodal product. Promising light at the end of the tunnel as a vision of overall improvement has not come yet, therefore we have to respond to this situation appropriately by introducing Congestion Surcharge.
Same as last year, we see the situation on German railway network most challenging. Complications with operations at inland terminals are now being added to the series of planned closures on the line.
We have the following planned closures ahead of us: March–May 2025: Bad Schandau – Schöna, restrictions on the main route to/from German ports and Benelux. First decade of July 2025: complete closure of arrivals at the Waltershof Hamburg station, which will prevent access to the CTB, CTA and Eurogate marine terminals. The accumulation of containers handled via these terminals must be taken into account; it will naturally take longer to return to normal operations. August 2025–April 2026: general repair of the Hamburg-Berlin railway connection, all railway services will be moved to alternative detour routes, which, however, do not have sufficient capacity. In addition, this route will be shared by passenger and freight transport. There can be expected significant impacts on our services. Difficult-to-predict detour routes with limited throughput will mean longer transport times and an overall reduction in the quality of our services. The consequence of the problems in the railway networks, is the congestion of inland terminals, where, for that reason, we face significant unpredictable additional costs, not only in the form of train cancellations and failed truck deliveries.
The situation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will also be complicated. In one of the most important railway junctions in the Czech Republic – Česká Třebová – an extensive six-year reconstruction has just begun, which will significantly limit the accessibility of METRANS terminal Česká Třebová. As this is one of the most important HUB terminals within our entire transport network, there might occure temporary reductions in the flexibility of our services concerning container transiting through this terminal.
In March and April 2025, the situation in Slovakia will be complicated due to a closure on the route Bratislava – Podunajské Biskupice. During this closure the traffic will be operated via a detour route which is longer and does not fully replace the original route in terms of capacity.
The situation on the Adriatic corridor remains challenging. Due to restrictions and closures on the railway line, the transportation is returning to the alarming situation as experienced in the second half of last year. With no sign of improvement, we are forced to cancel larger numbers of trains, and these delays prevent the efficient planning of our trains. In addition, from 10.03.2025, Luka Koper terminal renews the restriction to accept export containers no earlier than 7 days before the ETA of the vessel. This rule will have a significant impact on inland terminals.
The reality of 2025 will indeed not be easy. All the former mentioned facts, the obstacles caused by a third party, are beyond our control and dealing with them means a significant and a long-term increase in the cost of providing an intermodal service without impacting the high standard of our services. It is not feasible for our functioning to continue to cover all similar additional costs, and for this reason we are forced to introduce Congestion Surcharge that will be defined as furtherly specified amount of EUR per TEU from 01.04.2025.
We will inform you about the actual amount of the Congestion Surcharge in the near future.
Thank you for your understanding. We believe that despite these unfavourable conditions our cooperation will remain to be successful.
METRANS Team
