Betuweroute freight rail line to be inaugurated

It’s an exiting time for railroading in Central Europe - after the TGV Est and the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, the Dutch Betuweroute (official site) freight rail line between Rotterdam and Germany will be the third infrastructure project to open for service this month. This 160 km long, double track freight corridor is set to improve capacity between the Dutch harbor cities and mainland Europe.

However, startup of freight services over the new route might be slower than expected, due to the fact that locomotives that will operate on the new route will need to be equipped with both Dutch and ETCS 2 train control systems, plus also be able to run under 1.5 kV DC and 25 kV AC catenary (plus, if they want to continue onwards in Germany, they also need 15 kV AC capability and German train control systems).

Still to come later this year: Highspeed 1 (2nd phase of Channel Tunnel Rail Link to St Pancras), HSL-Zuid (High speed line between Amsterdam and Antwerp) and completion of the Madrid-Barcelona high speed rail line …

Posted in: Uncategorized | June 15, 2007 10:11 pm