Hauliers hit at fares for permit beating rail service
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A NEW rail service from Munich to Llubljana Yugoslavia, announced last week by Kombiverkehr, the German rail/road company, will allow hauliers to put their trucks on a train at Ostend and connect with the new service.
But at a seminar arranged by the company, hauliers using their trains on other routes were shocked and angry at the E614 return fare of the Llubljana train.
The company had admitted that the reason hauliers were using the train services was because they could not get permits to cross Germany or Austria by road on the way to the Middle East. Already the service has run into problems with the numbers of hauliers using it. One train was cancelled with no prior notice leaving a British haulier with two units stranded in Yugoslavia, because of lack of demand.
An angry haulier told Kombiverkehr managing director Mr H. Wengel and German Federal Railways director Dr Helmut Beuchler that he was offered only £650 for a return load from Yugoslavia.
They hit out at booking problems and attacked DoE freight chief Mr Reg Dawson over the issue of permits to cross the countries by train. "No train booking—no permit," said one.
Dr Beuchler explained to 'them that the German government was worried that the amount of haulage business being done in Germany involved very few German hauliers.
Why, the hauliers wanted to know, could not Kombiverkehr issue the necessary permits instead of them having to wait for the Newcastle DoE office to issue them?
At present the operators have to book the train and then apply to the DoE to get the permits—a system which they said causes the large number of cancellations that the railways suffer.
British hauliers also attacked the railmen over the cost of converting their trailers so that they could use the trains. The maximum corner height for a trailer on the train is 3.60 metres (12 ft).
Later one haulier told CM that he was having to pay £400 per trailer to have his converted.
The new service will cater for three classes of vehicles: road trains and artics with their drivers; unaccompanied trailers; and containers or swop-bodies.