No shunting at Waalhaven Zuid freight yard of Rotterdam, says ProRail
Rail freight operators will not be allowed to shunt with hazardous substances at the Waalhaven Zuid freight yard of Rotterdam “for the time being”, ProRail has announced.
The Dutch infrastructure manager said the DCMR environment service and the Rotterdam Rijnmond safety region “doubt the reliability of the temporary fire extinguishing facility and have set additional requirements”.
ProRail tested an improved version of the temporary extinguishing system on January 13. This was functioning, other than the previous fire extinguishing system.
However, the DCMR environment service and the Rotterdam Rijnmond safety region do not yet agree with the (partial) resumption of shunting activity with with hazardous substances. This is partly because the extinguishing system does not cover the entire shunting site yet.
The environment service and the safety region request, among other things, technical and safety specifications from the manufacturer of the system. For example, they want to determine whether the extinguishing system can withstand the maximum possible pressure.
If this is proven, ProRail can resume shunting with hazardous substances on part of the yard under certain conditions. The environment service and the safety region have asked ProRail to build a permanent fire extinguishing water supply as soon as possible.
The Waalhaven Zuid freight yard has been closed for freight trains transporting hazardous goods for four months, because a previous test proved that the fire extinguishing facilities were not fit for purpose. As a result, shunting activities have mostly been relocated to Kijfhoek, the Netherlands’ largest emplacement.
The temporary closure was perceived as a hard hit for the hinterland transport by rail, as Waalhaven is a crucial yard for the transport of containers, tank containers, trailers and swap bodies that come in and out of the port and are forwarded to destinations including (but not limited to) Venlo, Tilburg, Coevorden and Duisburg, but also Poznan, Milan, Vienna, Budapest and China.
For more information visit www.prorail.nl
28th January 2020
