North Sea Port A team effort

Last September, Dick Engelhardt, Member of the Board at North Sea Port, was granted the Rail Person 2022 award by Rail Cargo Information Netherlands. According to the jury, he won the award because of his efforts to promote rail transport to and from North Sea Port. However, according to him, this award should be contributed to the entire team involved in the development of rail infrastructure at the port authority.

“I was pleasantly surprised when I was told that I was one of the nominees for the award,” Mr Engelhardt says, “and when I was announced as the winner, I could not believe it, as in my opinion other nominees had more chance to claim the title.” According to Rail Cargo, the organiser of the Rail Cargo Awards event, the contesters were judged mainly on their role as ambassador or their role in the sector and looking at this, Mr Engelhardt surely deserves the price, because since he joined the port authority in 2005, he has always put ample efforts in improving the railway infrastructure in and around the port area. “Of course I am honoured, but I dedicate the award to all my colleagues who, together with me, are working hard to enlarge the share of rail transport in our port’s modal split.”

The Rail Cargo Awards are awarded annually by Rail Cargo Information Netherlands to candidates who play a leading role in promoting the rail sector in their environment. Apart from the Rail Person Award the organisation also reaches out the Rail Talent and the Rail Shipper Award. For each of the categories, three candidates are nominated that are proposed by industry peers. The winners are chosen by a jury that consists of the winners of the previous editions. Their vote counts for 75% and the remaining 25% are votes from public voting. The Rail Talent Award this year was won by Erik Harteveld of Bertschi and the Rail Shipper Award was granted to Nico van den Berg of Electrolux.

“We are a multimodal port and today the share of rail transport is around 9%”, Mr Engelhardt explains. He continues, “For the upcoming years, our goal is to expand this to 15% at the expense of road transport. Compared with the 58% of inland shipping, this 15% looks like a modest share. However, one should realise that every million tonnes of cargo that is transported by rail, eliminates the emission of 50,000 trucks each year. At this moment North Sea Port transports about 7.7t million by rail. With the abovementioned ambition this means that in 2025 we will transport about 12t million by rail. For understanding the impact on the environment, you should recalculate the total of t/km with a factor that delivers seven times less CO2 emissions pro t/km, which is a considerable contribution to sustainable transport.

Mr Engelhardt continues, “Throughout the years, we have tried to grow the share of rail in many ways. First, we put ample efforts in realising a new rail connection between Zeeland and Antwerp, the so-called VEZA line as well as in an additional rail connection between the port areas of Ghent and Terneuzen. This used to be called the Axel-Zelzate connection and is known today as Rail Ghent-Terneuzen (RGT).” This year, after years of research and lobbying, the latter connection has made a large step towards realisation because the Dutch government granted this new infrastructural improvement EUR 105 million through the Growth Fund (under the condition that Belgium takes the same number of investments). This new connection will highly improve the rail connectivity of the port areas of Ghent and Terneuzen. Apart from lobbying for RGT and VEZA, Mr Engelhardt and his team also aim for customer related connections. “Making our port more favourable for rail transport,” he says, “of course starts with good rail connections for our customers and in the past ffteen years we managed to realise new or improved connections to various customers such as Lineage Logistics, OVET, and Verbrugge in Vlissingen, and Bertschi, Outokumpu, and Vlaeynatie in Terneuzen.”

Dick Engelhardt and his team have been promoting North Sea Port’s rail wish list on many occasions and in many bodies. “In realising new rail infrastructure, four elements are important”, he voices. “These are cost control, safety, spatial design and environment, and network and infrastructure, and in all four elements, innovation plays an important role, too. For the RGT connection, we conducted various surveys under supervision of Berenschot to research the four elements. This eventually resulted in a positive outcome showing that realising RGT would result in a proftable redundant rail connection. Proftable not only for the North Sea Port area, but also for the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Europe.”

Photo courtesy of North Sea Port / Tom D’haenens.

According to Mr Engelhardt, working with Berenschot not only resulted in input from the various surveys. “One of the things we have learned from Berenschot,” he elaborates “is that, for realising our goals, it is important to constantly share our plans with everyone involved to get the highest possible commitment. Of course, this takes a lot of time, and asks for a lot of patience. However, by thoroughly informing the right people and taking the right formal steps, our goal, to realise the RGT connection, came closer step by step. During the process, on various levels, the opinion about our port with respect to rail transport changed. A good example of this is the fact that recently, North Sea Port has been added as a hub on three TEN-T corridors, namely North SeaMediterranean, North Sea-Baltics, and Rhine-Alpine. This shows that we are recognised as a port with good rail cargo options in all directions.”

For Mr Engelhardt, the Rail Cargo award shows that the efforts he and his team put in promoting rail transport to and from North Sea Port are noticed. “Of course,” he concludes, “the award is an appreciation of the tremendous amount of work from everyone involved at North Sea Port. And now that RGT is an important step closer to realisation, this does not mean that our job is done. More rail projects, such as the Zeeland-Antwerp rail connection, but also other multimodal infrastructural improvements are on our wish list to contribute to our strategic goals, so we still have a fair way to go.”