‘Backlog due to floods will last for days’

Central and Eastern Europe have been dealing with extreme weather conditions for the past few days, with a significant impact on rail freight in different countries. “The backlog at the borders, and therefore the processing of freight traffic, will take several more days”, Austrian operator Rail Cargo Group (RCG) said. This was also confirmed by Metrans, with CEO Peter Kiss saying that the effects of the floods will be felt for the upcoming days.

Floods and heavy rainfalls affected Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and Romania. RCG said that, in Austria, “it will take some time before all restrictions are lifted on the main routes, particularly for single wagonload traffic.” Even with the rain being gone, the damage, which RCG described as immense, needs to be fixed before trains can start running again.

Despite the impact on the infrastructure, Metrans underlined that none of their terminals have been hit by the floods. “today we can report that we have managed to find also alternatives for the routings and basically all the terminals are accessible by our rail system. We have managed to re-route trains within the network for the necessary time”, Kiss added.

Suspended services all over

The Czech operator ČD Cargo also mentioned that their services in Austria are significantly limited. “Trains do not run south from Vienna on the mountain line via Semmering. Due to the risk of flooding, traffic is also suspended on part of the backbone line between Vienna and Salzburg”, the company stated.

In addition, services from and to some destinations in the Moravian-Silesian and Olomuc regions, bordering with Poland, are suspended until further notice. Moreover, other companies have introduced bans, especially for cross-border traffic.

For example, Rail Cargo Hungaria cancelled all services through five border crossings between Hungary and Austria until today. Polish operator PKP Cargo also introduced a ban on transport on two border crossings between Czechia and Poland, in this case until 22 September.