From 29 November to 10 December the International Union of Railways (UIC) is promoting the role of rail as part of the solution to climate change at the United Nations climate change conference (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico. In cooperation with UNEP (the UN Environment Programme) and ITPS (Institution for Transport Policy Studies), a successful joint side event was organised on 1 December under the theme “Keeping climate solutions on track – the role of partnerships, good practice and rail”.

The objective of this side event aims on the one hand to draw attention to the contribution of transport’s emissions to climate change (23% of CO2 emissions come from transport), and on the other to strengthen cooperation between UIC and key international organisations on transport and climate change.

The side event was composed of two panels. The first panel included the presentations of the host organisations. ITPS, represented by Deputy Director Iwao Matsuoka, presented a proposal for a funding scheme supporting the development of railways in developing countries. UIC, represented by Senior Advisor Margrethe Sagevik, highlighted rail’s efforts to continuously improve the performance and commitments to sustainable mobility, supported by the Declaration on Sustainable Mobility and Transport and the recently updated global rail position paper “Keeping Climate Solution on track”. UNEP, represented by Spokesperson and Head of Media Nick Nuttall, showcased climate neutral solutions for transport including the bus rapid transport system (BRTs) in Jakarta and the Climate Neutral Network initiative which brings together partners from several industries and sectors all aiming to achieve climate neutrality.

The second panel welcomed the following guest speakers: Yuki Tanaka, Director at ITPS and official of the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, who elaborated on the role of rail stations in reforming the community and society. Holger Dalkmann, Programme Director for Climate Change and Sustainable Transport (TRL) linked the issue of sustainable transport to the ongoing negotiations, highlighting the interlinkages between the issues discussed by the previous speakers, including financing, technology and MRV.

Questions from the audience contributed to a vigorous debate, particularly on the carbon footprinting of transport and gave strong support to the EcotransIT methodology.

In addition to this side event, UIC, represented by Margrethe Sagevik, will also participate on 5 December in the transportation panel of the World Climate Summit, supported among others by Siemens and CNN, and bringing together panelists from various transport sectors, such as energy supply, car manufacturing and aviation, which will facilitate a constructive debate on policies, financing structures and business models to bring mobility solutions to scale.

UIC also has an exhibition stand at the official COP16 venue, which promotes the UIC Declaration on Sustainable Mobility & Transport, the UIC project Adapting Rail Infrastructure to Climate Change (ARISCC), the online eco-comparison tools EcoTransIT and EcoPassenger, as well as an updated version of the Global Rail Position Paper on Climate Change, which provides an overview of the emissions reductions potential and commitment from the railways.

UIC is very happy to continue cooperation with UNEP as a follow up of the successful international communications campaign Train to Copenhagen organised last year for COP15. UIC and UNEP are also happy to announce that the Train to Copenhagen campaign has been short listed among the top 5 candidates from over 1400 entrants for the prestigious European Excellence Awards 2010 in the International Communications category, alongside GE, L’Oreal, Electrolux and BMC Software. "Honouring outstanding achievement on an international scale”, the award ceremony will take place on 9 December in Prague (Czech Republic), at the Žofín Palace. A list of highly-regarded communications specialists have been selected to be jury members, basing their evaluation on the creativity, innovation, cost-efficiency and strategy of the nominated projects. In the meantime, UIC and UNEP are simply honoured to be among the distinguished finalists. We’d like to extend our gratitude to the Train to Copenhagen team responsible for putting together the campaign, to Jette Tosti of JE:SU for the beautiful design, UNEP, WWF, and to all our members and partners worldwide who have worked hard to make it a truly global campaign.

Several members of the audience present at the side event as well as visitors to the exhibition stand are now asking whether UIC and UNEP have plans for a special train for COP17 in South Africa in 2011.

The long-term strategy outlining how the rail sector can reduce its environmental impact, ‘Moving towards Sustainable Mobility: European Rail Sector Strategy 2030 and beyond’, was approved during the UIC Regional Assembly Europe on 1 December at UIC Headquarters.

The strategy, which is a joint UIC/CER paper, has been developed to provide a medium and long-term plan for the rail sector that fits in with wider environmental and policy goals.

The strategy suggests how the rail sector should be performing in environmental terms in the medium (2030) and long (2050) term in four areas: CO2 reduction, energy efficiency, reduction of exhaust emissions (nitrogen oxides and particulate matter), and noise. It builds on the existing commitment made by CER members in 2008 to reduce CO2 emissions from rail traction by 30%.

The new CO2 reductions target is that by 2030, European Railways are to cut their average specific CO2 emissions caused by railway operations by 50% compared to 1990, the base year.

The strategy is voluntary, and there will be no targets imposed on members. However, members are expected to accept the need to ensure their future plans follow its aims. UIC and CER will also be developing monitoring processes to ensure that progress is being made to achieve the objectives, and that a series of road maps allow for the development of more detailed work and activity plans to ensure progress takes place.

The national motto of Luxembourg, ‘Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sin’ (We want to remain what we are), could perfectly well be CFL cargo’s motto too. After all, the young rail freight carrier, founded only four years ago, is now proudly able to deliver a complete range of customer-oriented, door-to-door, pan-European services. Together with its subsidiaries in Germany, Denmark and France, CFL cargo is determined to take its place in the liberalised European market. Not as the biggest but certainly as the most specialised player in European transport services for steel products.

“That’s where our roots are – in steel transport”, explains CFL cargo CEO Fernand Rippinger, “and that’s why we want to remain what we are. With our eyes wide open and always on the look-out for good business opportunities, of course!” He can say that today with a barely suppressed smile given that ArcelorMittal’s Luxembourg steel plants are once again churning out considerable quantities of products, including rolled wire, coils, beams and sheet piles. Trains once again depart regularly from Luxembourg and at the Bettembourg marshalling yard, where over 1000 wagons are dispatched to 21 countries every day, it is all hands on deck once again. That does not make the slump of 2009 a good experience, but 2010 can clearly be called promising.

A severe blow

Fernand Rippinger: “In one way or another, the worldwide crisis hit everyone hard. Since a large share of our transport activity is steel transports – 60 to 70% of our volumes – we were without doubt even more affected by the crisis than our colleagues. The first half of 2009 was just plain weak, but the turnaround came in the second half and ever since recovery has been slow but steady.

In fact, we saw our volumes drop by a good 22% in 2009. This means that production fell from 9 to 7 million tonnes. The good news is, however, that we experienced a strong resurgence in Q1 and Q2 of 2010, with a total production of 408 million tkm (tonnes-kilometres), as opposed to 593 million tkm for all of 2009.”

A measured response

Fernand Rippinger: “We obviously took countermeasures when the crisis hit, such as reducing the workforce as well as our fleet of locomotives and wagons. That wasn’t easy because our fleet consists of only 30% leased wagons, as opposed to 70% company-owned vehicles. These high fixed costs give us limited flexibility and leave little room for manoeuvre because we cannot simply reduce our fleet for a short period time.

In addition, we still had to finish transforming the legacy passenger-orientated structure into a flexible, customer-orientated organisation. Operating rail transports according to a tight, forward-looking plan, based on collaborative scheduling of the strongly fluctuating volumes of the customer, is a very different way of working than a classic passenger production model. Steering that sort of transformation process takes a lot of time because the challenge is how to organise it all.

In terms of competitiveness, all European rail freight operators were, of course, in the same boat during the crisis and the other rail freight carriers were probably the least of our competitors. We all suffered a lot from the fierce competition by road transport operators and one of the unpleasant results was, amongst other things, that the price per ton dropped sharply.”

540 new flat wagons

Fernand Rippinger: “However, the impact of the crisis on our investments and expansion plans was not really substantial. Let me explain: about 3 years ago, we started to invest in our fleet of flat wagons with the acquisition of 540 new 25m Rbnpss-type wagons (designed especially for the transport of long steel products such as beams and sheet piles) by 2011. Should you suddenly pull the handbrake on this in hard times? In my opinion that doesn’t make much sense because you always have to look at that sort of investment from a long term perspective. You cannot put a stop to your investments every time there’s a crisis. Staying on track is the best strategy!”

Made of steel

The 56 year old man from Luxembourg is not only an extremely amiable man, Fernand Rippinger is also a man of steel. Quite literally because, after the early years of his career at the University of Karlsruhe, he joined the Luxembourg steel company Arbed in 1986 to lead various automation projects – both in Luxembourg and in other branches of the group. In 1996, he was put in charge of international ‘Purchasing Coordination’ for the Arbed group, a job he continued to do on a larger scale at Arcelor until his appointment, in October 2006, as CEO of the newly created CFL cargo.

On the major European axes

CFL cargo was set up on 17 October 2006 as a joint venture between CFL (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois) and the steel concern ArcelorMittal. 2/3 of the capital input came from CFL and 1/3 from ArcelorMittal Luxembourg. The new company took over the commercial activities of EuroLuxCargo (CFL subsidiary) and the freight department of CFL, in addition to the internal transportation department of ArcelorMittal Luxembourg.

Fernand Rippinger adds “We also took over the rail freight activities of NEG Uetersen (Germany) and Dansk Jernbane (Denmark) in the form of two subsidiaries: CFL cargo Deutschland and CFL cargo Danmark. Our strategic position at the heart of Europe allows us to have a prominent presence on the major European North-South and East-West axes. This means that we can use our full range of services to the maximum advantage not only in the SaarLorLux region, but also in Northern Germany (CFL cargo Deutschland), Southern Denmark (CFL cargo Danmark) and beyond.

In fact, just a few months ago, together with our sister-company CFL Multimodal, we created a new subsidiary CFL Fret Services France, offering various ground services in the area of freight throughout France. CFL cargo also uses the Hagondange marshalling yard as a consolidation point for flows whose origin or destination is in the region.

To complete our portfolio of rail freight services, our subsidiary Ateliers de Pétange – a freight wagon workshop – will become the official ECM (Entity in Charge of Maintenance) for CFL cargo.”

Growing beyond our borders

Fernand Rippinger: “CFL cargo has no choice but to go beyond Luxembourg’s borders because, with an area of barely 2,500 km², the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg simply cannot offer much room for development. Our country does not have a wide range of commercial activities either - mainly construction and consumer goods, plus some chemicals (petroleum) and of course steel. Therefore it’s not hard to understand why, historically, we have focused on steel transports and the single wagon business. Transports of long steel products are indeed mostly single wagon load because scrap comes from many different European destinations and the finished long steel products are sold to many small distributors all over Europe. Hence the single wagon business is crucial to the supply chain in Europe.

If we want growth, then we have to look for it outside our borders. In a modest way, of course, if I may say so. And most importantly, in the case of certain traffics, via productive partnerships with local operators like DB Schenker, SNCB Logistics or SNCF, as well as via alliances. I’m thinking, for example, of our Sibelit partnership on the Antwerp-Switzerland corridor and the Xrail alliance for single wagon load. Such initiatives lead to more transparent transport models, much improved efficiency, greatly reduced administrative overhead and noticeably increased reliability. This helps us put a strong foot in the door of our competitors in road transport.”

A new approach to rail freight

Fernand Rippinger: “Everyone from the rail freight sector will agree if I say that it was high time to adapt our production structures to safeguard our competitiveness in the medium and long term. In fact, the ‘single point of contact’ models we now work with were applied to the trucking business back in the eighties, meaning we had some catching up to do. Thanks to the current more advanced configurations, a complete rail transport route can be organised and followed up via a ‘single point of contact’. The improved rail operator efficiency leads to time and cost savings for the customers.”

Big guys, little guys

Fernand Rippinger: “Where does CFL cargo stand in the Europe of today and tomorrow? My answer is as short as it is simple: CFL cargo is realistic enough to not dream of becoming a big player, but it does intend to play an important role as a specialised rail freight company with very specific niche expertise. I think I can say with justifiable pride that we have achieved that status with our international service offering for the transport of steel. Moreover, we have done so with a small and very versatile organisation, based on a great respect for safety, quality and the environment. Those values are high on our list of priorities partly because of CFL cargo’s origins: the two parent companies consider environmental awareness, quality and safety to be extremely important.

In a liberalised rail freight market, such values carry a certain weight but I would be the first to say that the current free market is no easy matter for small CFL cargo. Obviously liberalisation offers opportunities for rail freight carriers, but it also represents a major challenge: different safety certificates, homologations, safety systems, access agreements, language requirements, driving licences in each country mean that we are faced with multiple requirements as soon as we cross the border. The lack of European standardisation puts the rail freight industry at a disadvantage when faced with the unbridled flexibility of international road transport. This much is clear: the European rail freight market offers much potential for well prepared and organised rail operators. This is true for the big guys offering large scale, pan-European services to the customer, as well as for the little guys offering customized, dedicated services for niche customers. A real European network for rail freight transport might not be for tomorrow, but the optimist in me says that we are on the right track!”

The INESS General Assembly took place at UIC Paris on 25 November 2010. The Assembly was attended by approximately 50 participants including representatives from the EU and the supply industry, railway stakeholders and the INESS umbrella railways.

The meeting was opened by Andy Doherty, INESS Steering Board Chairman, who welcomed the participants and key speakers. UIC GDS Jean-Pierre Loubinoux delivered a welcome speech to the participants, explaining the importance of the INESS Project. He underlined in his speech that INESS responds to the stringent needs of railway signalling in the interlocking domain: more than 30% of all signalling installations should be replaced in the next 15 years with more than 50% reaching the end of their technical and economic life in the next 30 years. Reducing acquisition costs by 20% seems a realistic aim and reducing installation costs by 23% may be achieved. The supply industry needs to access a harmonised market: enhanced standardisation in the fields of requirements, base system architecture and interfaces. He recalled that after ETCS, INESS is the second largest railway project in the signalling domain with 30 partners from the railways, supply industry, research, academia, 1062 person months, 102 deliverables and 16,6 million Euros with 10 million Euros of co-funding from the EC. A welcome speech was delivered on behalf of the supply industry, represented by David Gillan, General Manager of UNIFE/UNISIG, who explained the importance of the railways and the supply industry working together and of making the project a success.

George Barbu, INESS EU Coordinator, spoke on behalf of the INESS team, underpinning the need to achieve concrete results and to base INESS on the win-win IXL process of the railways and the supply industry. Progress has been made on concepts to reduce the overall life cycle cost for the new IXL generation compliant with ETCS (railways’ point of view) and to reduce the overall production cost. INESS’ overall concept may be centred on the reference architecture compliant with ETCS, the definition and standardisation of impacting interfaces and production of tools to further reduce the engineering, testing and validation work. A project summary was presented by Project Manager Emmanuel Buseyne (UIC) who reported that the project had achieved most of the activities planned during its second year. The Y1 EC review recommendations have been applied to increase the quality of management processes, technical consistency and coherence; the main objectives and deliverables scheduled for Y2 have been fulfilled; the project has achieved concrete results such as the LCC model, common core of requirements, reference system architecture for interlockings and system and software specifications and implementation of tools to improve the Safety Case Process. Some “gaps” with regard to WS interactions and technical content have been identified and have been overcome through the specific use of Technical Amendment Requests (TAR) and/or taskforce processes. The meeting was continued with presentations from the railways. Dr. Bernd Elsweiler from DB Netz revealed the main challenges and strategic objectives from DB’s point of view: performance, reduction of obsolescence effects and migration to ETCS; these are strategic objectives and the railways expect INESS to provide an answer! He concluded by saying that only a positive business perspective would be a driving force for change!

A further speech was delivered by ADIF representative Dr. Eng. Ignacio Jorge Iglesias who explained the project objectives and ADIF’s priorities. He presented a critical analysis to support the stringent need to steer the project towards concrete results and standardisation of major interfaces. The speech from the supply industry was delivered by Frans Heijnen (UNIFE/Invensys) who presented the supply industry’s point of view saying that a great deal of progress had been achieved over the last year, that the supply industry was positive on the progress being made and that it was very much committed to achieving its goals. He confirmed that the supply industry would keep driving forward and remain actively involved. The General Assembly was followed by two sessions composed of four interactive workshops: INESS Business Model; IXL Requirements, Migration and Fallback Strategies; Methods and Tools for Harmonisation of the Safety Case Process and the presentation of WS D4, currently intending to validate the IXL safety-related requirements by means of mathematic tools (UML).

SBB are to sell their couchette cars to RAlpin. The 20 cars will begin operation on the rolling road (ROLA) when the timetable changes in late 2011, thus improving the comfort of truck drivers during their journey between Germany and Italy.

Several times a day, truck drivers board RAlpin couchette cars in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), enabling their trucks to be transported by train across the Alps to Novara (Italy).