WITH rival freight operator Connex now using RFF tracks (RG 7.05 p409), Fret SNCF is moving onto the offensive with applications for safety certificates to run trains in Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg. The first is expected imminently and the other two by the end of the year.
Announcing this on June 27, SNCF also vowed to ’seize intramodal competition as an opportunity’ - a statement that some observers might say broke with past policy. The statement also confirmed that after making unavoidable service cuts and filtering out unprofitable traffic, Fret SNCF would maintain its current network and continue to promote wagonload traffic. This requires it to retain its marshalling yards, and a plan to modernise the busiest of these is to be submitted to RFF.
Progress is also being made in terms of productivity. In a contract from Arcelor to haul 2·8 million tonnes of iron and steel products a year between Dunkerque and Liège until 2010, won jointly with B-Cargo, locos will be used for 21h a day compared with the average of just 6h - a figure that SNCF confirmed to us on July 20.
On July 13 SNCF announced that it had agreed to sell its Sernam sundries business to a management buy-out led by Managing Director Philippe Chevalier. The sale is expected to be completed in the autumn.
- Meeting a requirement from the transport ministry (RG 5.05 p239), RFF called on July 4 for expressions of interest to operate on a ’non-discriminatory’ basis the 40 intermodal terminals that it owns. On the same day, Transport Minister Dominque Perben floated the idea of a rolling motorway service between Luxembourg and Perpignan.
