"Customers also like to have a rail quote"

Customers want grain a rail quote

'At Neele-Vat Logistics we thought in wheels for many years, and that has given us a strong market position in land transport. But since a few years there has been a new mindset. We now also think in rail cars and now look at what is more economical, road or rail, and then present the choice to the customer. We find that customers really like it when we quote the rail option in addition to road.

Neele-Vat Logistics has traditionally had a strong focus on land transport, again focusing mainly on import containers going through the port to the hinterland. There is an enormous amount of cargo from Rotterdam to Eastern Europe. We have taken a big hit there, especially in terms of rates. We drive our own trucks in Western Europe and outsource transport in Central and Eastern Europe to regular carriers. We have in-house specialists for almost every European country who know the country and often speak the language, from Poles to Hungarians, Russians and Romanians.

The basic knowledge of rail transport was already in house thanks to ShipRoad, the neutral shipping branch within Neele. When we also started looking into rail in the transport departments, we became enthusiastic about the lead times and what else appeared to be possible. We consulted with the customers, who were able to decide on the rail alternative themselves via a quotation. More and more customers are now choosing that option.

A lot of cargo goes to the Rheinland/Ruhr region and there lead times are almost comparable to trucking, but the price is often lower. Customers who should have had their goods yesterday, so to speak, continue to receive their items by truck. In the Ruhr region, the price difference is not yet so great due to the limited distance, so there the road is still often chosen. But if we talk about Stuttgart and Mannheim, the difference becomes visible. This can easily save a few hundred euros, which is why rail is increasingly chosen.

Italy is also a great example. A lot of the goods at destinations there go intermodal via rail. We can offer rail significantly cheaper there and the transit times are also favorable. In 2012, we also transported a project load of several hundred containers of solar panels to Romania by rail.

I don't see rail per se getting much faster than it already was. However, operators do go to certain areas more and more frequently. Compared to Hamburg, Rotterdam has a huge backlog, but the number of destinations is steadily increasing, especially to Germany. There is a lot of room for improvement there. We would like to have more destinations in Germany in particular. Many routes still lack the volume as Hamburg and Bremerhaven have, but if the connections are there, so will the cargo.

Another issue is the connection to Euromax, APM and ECT. With the commissioning of the Second Maasvlakte, new terminals will be added. I am curious to see how rail transport will be organized there, because the connections to the terminals are very important to us. In that respect, it is nice to be able to express these kinds of wishes to the operators via Rail Cargo Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the growth continues. As of mid-January, we are hitching a ride on TX Logistik's service to Munich. We are offering services for full and part loads based on 45-foot containers. And furthermore, we are negotiating new opportunities with various operators, so we will let ourselves be heard with that.'

Daniel Tom, Neele-Vat Logistics