No "oomph" in Germany: According to the initiative "Every Meter Counts," at least 30 740-meter rail sidings usable for commerce and industry are lacking in and around Munich to keep Bavaria's capital city competitive as a production location in the future. Too much has been dismantled in the last 25 years.
During a brief visit to Wolnzach, Parliamentary State Secretary Michael Theurer of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport discussed the current state of the rail infrastructure with representatives of the automotive logistics company ARS Altmann and the rail freight sector. Over the past two and a half decades, a large number of urgently needed sidings, dispatching tracks, train formation facilities, and other service facilities for rail freight have been dismantled. Companies like ARS Altmann AG are heavily impacted by these developments and intend to approach policymakers through the industry-initiated alliance "Every Meter Counts.".
M. Altmann, M. Theurer
The focus is on the sidings and dispatching tracks. These so-called service facilities in the railway network are necessary for providing empty freight wagons before loading, for shunting loaded freight wagons, for assembling and dispatching freight trains, and for dispatching the freight trains before they depart on long-distance routes. For arriving freight trains, the sidings and dispatching tracks are needed to prepare the train or freight wagons for unloading at the freight customer or in the transshipment terminal. Theurer, the Federal Government's Commissioner for Rail Transport, was "very impressed by the innovative solutions and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Altmann family, who are continuously reducing their environmental impact through the use of modern and efficient technologies, thus making a significant contribution to the energy transition.".
Helmuth Schmitt, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Bavarian regional group of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), emphasized the importance of a high-performance rail infrastructure: “For greater climate protection and as a location factor for the economy, we need rail freight transport. We are pleased that the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria have recognized how important a robust and efficient rail infrastructure is for shifting freight traffic from road to rail. To make this shift possible, the railway infrastructure needs to be upgraded not only in the area of the tracks themselves, but also in the area of service facilities such as sidings, dispatching tracks, train formation facilities, freight terminals (...).”.
Photos: ARS Altmann
Therefore, the clarification made by an amendment to the Federal Railway Expansion Act, stating that the federal government also intends to finance such facilities in the federally owned rail network through this law, is welcomed.
