It is not possible to automatically sort wagons at Dutch railway yard Kijfhoek since Wednesday afternoon 15:15. Cracks were discovered in two main brakes of the hill system, reports ProRail. The fault has a large impact on national and international rail freight transport.

An alternative sorting process has been set up in the meantime, that allows wagons to be placed on the departure tracks. But according to rail freight operator DB Cargo, this process is very time-consuming.

“What we are doing now is putting the wagons in the right position on the south side in a traditional, safe and time-consuming way. This more than halves the capacity and increases the number of staff involved”, says spokesman Jelle Rebbers. According to him, the negative impact on the punctuality of wagonload traffic from, to and within the Netherlands is large.

Repairing the brakes

ProRail reports that one main track brake will be repaired on Friday and the second one on Saturday. The infrastructure manager therefore expects that the automatic sorting system can be put back into operation on Sunday in the course of the day. “This repair work requires specialist welding crews that have only limited availability”, explains ProRail spokesman Martijn de Graaf.

In addition to the problems at Kijfhoek, freight transport is also affected by the Deutsche Bahn rail strike. According to DB Cargo, this is causing delays and cancellations of trains. Trade union GDL has called on its members to lay down their work until at least Tuesday 7 September 02.00 am.

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