Baltic piggyback
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IN RESPONSE to the demand by Swedish hauliers for a "deeper penetration" piggyback route to and from Germany, Swedish Railways have announced the introduction of a new route between, Arsta, Stockholm, and a terminal at Elze, near Hanover.
It is scheduled to start in January 1981. The new service will carry trailers on rail wagons which will cross the Baltic on the train ferry between Trelleborg and Sassnitz, travel through East Germany and take just under two days in each direction. Two departures a week are planned to provide capacity for up to 30 trailers each.
Earlier this year the Arsta terminal in Sweden also became the piggyback centre for another international route when the daily service to and from Oslo was inaugurated. This development is particularly interesting to operators working between Norway and Finland.
Meanwhile, central European Kombiverkehr activities appear to have been speeded up by the astonishing official statement
during the opening of the 17km (101/2 mile) Gotthard road tunnel that the new all-weather facility was not intended to cater for heavy freight traffic.
Already artic and drawbar trailer traffic on the southern tunnel approach — which has not yet been fully rebuilt to motorway standards — has been affected by new restrictions on operating times. With Swiss maximum weights likely to remain unchanged at 28 tonnes for many years, international hauliers crossing the country will be expected to make more use of piggyback trains to bridge the transit sector.
Among several new services due to start next year will be one between Freiburg, Germany and Lugano near the Swiss-Italian frontier.