Ticket To Ride – Railfreight In Holland 1 DVD –  

Railfreight in the Netherlands is changing- and changing fast! But the importance of the network of rail connected ports remains pivotal to the success of this and indeed all transport modes. We tour the major ports starting at Terneuzen – an enclave of RAILION which is linked with the NMBS I SNCB network rather than the NS – then on to the sister port of Vlissingen to watch the new Ford traffic arriving from Germany and Genk. Before we get to the big one – Rotterdam – we spend some time at the Netherland’s largest marshalling yard at Kijfhoek. We watch wagons going over the hump visit the control room and watch wagons being chased into their allocated slots by teams of mechanical mules! We follow a local trip working across the Maas to Vlaardingen to see a delivery of raw materials for the food industry and a local oil delivery being undertaken. Rotterdam is Europe’s largest container port and is served by two terminals: the Rail Service Centre which serves the older Waalhaven while Europort Delta serves the Maasvlakte quays- where the true giants of the ocean berth. We visit both terminals; exploring both shipside and railside. We also explore the port line and its railfreight customers and look at the modernisation that is currently underway as part of the Betuweroute programme. This film has been made with the extensive and active co-operation of RAILION NS infrastructure SHORTLINES ACTS European Rail Shuffle (ERS) Europe Container Terminals (ECT) the Port of Rotterdam the RSC Rotterdam and many others. Part two of this series continues with the Maasvlakte iron ore terminal before heading towards Germany to watch the port shuffles and see the Bentheimer Eisenbahn at work. The programme is comprehensively narrated with animation sequences courtesy of Transpoint.