What future do freight rail­ways have in Switz­er­land? The VAP dis­cus­ses these and other ques­ti­ons in a dou­ble inter­view with Peter Knaus, Head of Grau­bün­den Freight Rail­way at the Rhae­ti­an Rail­way (RhB), and Peter Lug­in­bühl, Head of Ope­ra­ti­ons at the Mat­ter­horn-Gott­hard Rail­way (MGBahn). In the deba­te, the experts talk about in-house ope­ra­ti­on and out­sour­cing, eco­no­mic via­bi­li­ty, inno­va­ti­on, com­pe­ti­ti­on and making rail freight trans­port more flexible.

Mr Lug­in­bühl, rail freight logi­stics is out­sour­ced on the Mat­ter­horn-Gott­hard Rail­way. Why is that?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: As a com­pa­ny that ope­ra­tes pri­ma­ri­ly in the tou­rism sec­tor, our main focus is on pas­sen­ger mobi­li­ty. Freight trans­port accounts for around 2% of the over­all result in the public ser­vice sec­tor. In 2011, the decis­i­on was made to con­cen­tra­te on rail trans­port for freight trans­port. We have pla­ced the upstream and down­stream inter­faces with the cus­to­mer under the respon­si­bi­li­ty of Alpin Cargo AG as the over­all logi­stics ser­vice pro­vi­der. This allows us both to con­cen­tra­te on our core com­pe­ten­ces: We are respon­si­ble for trans­port by rail, Alpin Cargo for the inter­face to the cus­to­mer, i.e. also for the last mile. In Zer­matt, for exam­p­le, fine dis­tri­bu­ti­on is car­ri­ed out using elec­tric vehic­les and horse-drawn carriages.

Peter Lug­in­bühl, Head of Ope­ra­ti­ons Mat­ter­horn-Gott­hard Railway

To what ext­ent is this out­sour­cing an advantage?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: This ope­ra­tor model has pro­ved its worth for our start­ing posi­ti­on with a limi­t­ed size and a fair­ly mana­geable con­tri­bu­ti­on of freight trans­port to the over­all result. It is also ideal from the freight cus­to­mers’ point of view.

Would you out­sour­ce again?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: Yes. Our ope­ra­tor model works very well. Nevert­hel­ess, we ques­ti­on it every five years and carry out a site assess­ment. We are only about a quar­ter of the size of the RhB’s Grau­bün­den freight rail­way. So it does­n’t make sense to run it ourselves.

Mr Knaus, you ope­ra­te rail freight trans­port yours­elf. What does this in-house ope­ra­ti­on look like?

Peter Knaus: We have orders from the can­ton of Grau­bün­den to pro­vi­de the public ser­vice, among other things. In the past, trans­port com­pa­nies were lite­ral­ly forced onto the rail­way. Things are dif­fe­rent today. We use the rail­way for what makes eco­no­mic sense. This crea­tes a win-win situa­ti­on for us and our cus­to­mers. For short distances or the last mile, we work tog­e­ther with road hau­la­ge com­pa­nies. We regu­lar­ly exch­an­ge infor­ma­ti­on with these busi­ness part­ners at our annu­al trans­port plat­form and through per­so­nal contact.

What dis­ad­van­ta­ges do you see with your model?

Peter Knaus: An enorm­ous amount of effort for our own rol­ling stock. Here’s an exam­p­le: our enti­re fleet of around 320 car­ri­a­ges is equip­ped with vacu­um bra­kes. Now, for stra­te­gic reasons, RhB has deci­ded to switch all car­ri­a­ges to air bra­kes by 2040. Accor­ding to our 2023–2030 stra­tegy, we will moder­ni­se half of the fleet and renew the other half, as this is the more eco­no­mic­al option.

What key cri­te­ria do you use to sel­ect the mode of transport?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: We are con­vin­ced that alt­hough rail is ideal for all goods, it is not equal­ly sui­ta­ble for all of them. We curr­ent­ly trans­port around 40 to 50% of goods bet­ween Visp and Zer­matt by rail. Rail’s strengths over road lie in its large capa­ci­ties, high avai­la­bi­li­ty and relia­bi­li­ty. We can gua­ran­tee the exact arri­val time in Zer­matt 99% of the time. With every mode of trans­port, you have to weigh up which is the best eco­no­mic and eco­lo­gi­cal modal split.

Peter Knaus: Lor­ries are also beco­ming incre­asing­ly eco­lo­gi­cal. This in turn means that the roads will con­ti­nue to be well fre­quen­ted. The can­ton is happy for every lorry that gets off the road so that there is less con­ges­ti­on in pri­va­te transport.

Peter Knaus, Head of Freight Trans­port at Bünd­ner Güterbahn

Which pro­ducts are more sui­ta­ble for rail trans­port, and which still have potential?

Peter Knaus: Long-distance goods that depend on punc­tua­li­ty and relia­bi­li­ty, such as food­s­tuffs. Like­wi­se let­ter and par­cel post and gene­ral cargo that needs to be deli­ver­ed on time. Sche­du­led freight, which we trans­port from 4.00 am. Rub­bish and recy­cling mate­ri­al must be trans­por­ted within 24 hours. Buil­ding mate­ri­als such as cement or salt are also very sui­ta­ble for rail freight trans­port. We also trans­port an extre­me­ly large amount of round tim­ber, around 95%, to Tira­no. We are pre­desti­ned for this, as cus­toms cle­arance is also more eco­no­mic­al than with a lorry. We trans­port most goods in com­bi­ned trans­port, except for logs and gene­ral cargo. Com­bi­ned trans­port has great poten­ti­al for the future. I see poten­ti­al for pel­let trans­port in our area.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: We have a very simi­lar pro­duct focus to RhB. But we don’t trans­port wood. We also trans­port large quan­ti­ties of hea­ting oil. We also trans­port a lot of lug­ga­ge for the tou­rist desti­na­ti­on of Zer­matt. Over the last few deca­des, con­sign­ments have beco­me smal­ler, not least due to the mail order business.

Relia­bi­li­ty and punc­tua­li­ty: what do you think?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: As a small rail­way, we can gua­ran­tee sta­bi­li­ty and punc­tua­li­ty extre­me­ly well. 95% or more of our cus­to­mers are extre­me­ly satis­fied with our relia­bi­li­ty. The situa­ti­on is very dif­fe­rent in the Euro­pean or Swiss-wide freight rail­way sys­tem. Punc­tua­li­ty is a huge pro­blem here. The indus­try still needs to impro­ve a lot and beco­me a more relia­ble partner.

Peter Knaus: I agree with that. We are extre­me­ly punc­tu­al, espe­ci­al­ly when it comes to food trans­port or sche­du­led freight. When we work with the big play­ers, it beco­mes more chal­len­ging to meet the desi­red dead­lines. For the WEF trans­port pro­ject, for exam­p­le, we were reli­ant on sup­pli­ers from the stan­dard gauge. If they don’t arri­ve on time in Land­quart, we can’t deli­ver the con­tai­ners to Davos on time eit­her. This poses a major pro­blem for our cus­to­mers, as time slots allo­ca­ted at the WEF have to be adhe­red to.

What deve­lo­p­ments do you reco­g­ni­se in production?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: At the moment we still have mixed pro­duc­tion, wher­eby we main­ly work with block trains. We are incre­asing­ly moving away from atta­ching freight wagons to pas­sen­ger trains. For one thing, the new mul­ti­ple-unit trains and the capa­ci­ties of our track sys­tems no lon­ger meet these requi­re­ments. We are also losing the logi­stics space for tran­ship­ment. We will incre­asing­ly con­cen­tra­te on block goods trains.

Peter Knaus: We run 52 freight-only trains a day on the main net­work. The new trains with auto­ma­tic cou­pling are only desi­gned to move them­sel­ves. The sheer num­ber of goods trains means that we retain a cer­tain degree of fle­xi­bi­li­ty. We have fixed annu­al time­ta­bles for sche­du­led freight, ever­y­thing is plan­ned through. We only run mixed ser­vices towards Arosa and Ber­ni­na, as there are not enough train paths for pure goods trains.

Spea­king of train paths: What chal­lenges do you face here?

Peter Knaus: During the day, regio­nal pas­sen­ger trans­port sets the pace for us. We have to adapt to this. We also have to adapt to pres­ti­ge trains such as the Gla­cier and Ber­ni­na Express. Our most fle­xi­ble time slots are from 4.00 am to 6.30 am. From 9.00 p.m. there is main­ly con­s­truc­tion work going on, so we can only ope­ra­te to a very limi­t­ed ext­ent. The RhB and the can­ton sup­port us well in the track issue and invol­ve the various inte­rest groups.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: I see four chal­lenges with the rail­way lines. First­ly, eco­no­mic effi­ci­en­cy. Our desi­red train paths are often occu­p­ied by tou­rist trains, which are more eco­no­mic­al. Second­ly, eco­no­mic via­bi­li­ty. We have enorm­ous invest­ments and major finan­cing issues. We make an important con­tri­bu­ti­on to the secu­ri­ty of sup­p­ly in our regi­on. Third­ly, fle­xi­bi­li­ty through speed. We can­not react as quick­ly to chan­ges in sup­p­ly as a trans­port com­pa­ny can. Fourth­ly, inno­va­ti­ve strength. We still pro­du­ce in the same way as we did 30 years ago. I am curious to see whe­ther we will actual­ly be able to trans­form through digitalisation.

What best prac­ti­ce cases are there that you and others can learn from?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: I see fine dis­tri­bu­ti­on over the last mile as a suc­cessful model. Our part­ner does it in such a way that more and more cus­to­mers come, pre­cis­e­ly becau­se he is so fle­xi­ble. And final­ly, I con­sider the dis­po­sal of rub­bish to be an exci­ting busi­ness model from an eco­lo­gi­cal and eco­no­mic point of view.

Peter Knaus: In my opi­ni­on, a good exam­p­le is the con­ver­si­on of bevera­ge trans­port. The Val­ser com­pa­ny has been trans­port­ing its bever­a­ges from Vals via Ilanz to Unter­vaz for over 40 years. The early mor­ning tran­ship­ment at the ramp in Ilanz cau­sed a lot of noise emis­si­ons. This gave rise to the idea of using swap bodies for trans­ship­ment. Tog­e­ther with the parent com­pa­ny Coca-Cola and the can­ton, we pro­cu­red sui­ta­ble swap bodies. These have pro­ved very suc­cessful. In the fore­seeable future, we will even be trans­port­ing them using elec­tric lor­ries with trai­lers. In dia­lo­gue with the can­ton and the poli­ce, we have obtai­ned a spe­cial per­mit for trai­lers for the Schnaus-Ilanz route. . The only sti­cking point at the moment is the HVF reim­bur­se­ment in com­bi­ned road-rail trans­port. This refund is still lin­ked to the LSVA. In future, it must be lin­ked to com­bi­ned trans­port. The legal frame­work still needs to change.

Which inno­va­tions will prove their worth in rail freight trans­port in the coming years?

Peter Knaus: I con­sider power packs, i.e. bat­te­ries that are moun­ted on the freight wagons, to be a sus­tainable solu­ti­on. These can be used as an ener­gy sup­pli­er for ref­ri­ge­ra­ted con­tai­ners, but also for con­s­truc­tion work in the tun­nels. We have even equip­ped sli­ding wall wagons with modern Power­packs. We have also made great pro­gress in the area of freight wagon track­ing. We now know where the freight wagons are, how fast they are tra­vel­ling, what their bat­tery levels are, what the tem­pe­ra­tures are in the ref­ri­ge­ra­ted con­tai­ners, etc. We can uti­li­se this data in a digi­tal sche­du­ling sys­tem. We have also alre­a­dy thought about an Uber sys­tem for gene­ral cargo. That would be very inno­va­ti­ve, but the sti­cking point here is the pro­duc­tion costs and sui­ta­ble partners.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: Rail freight trans­port will still be around in 30 to 50 years’ time. To achie­ve this, we need to move away from the cur­rent rigid sys­tems. Start­ing with the wagon super­s­truc­tures, through rigid logi­stics pro­ces­ses in freight hand­ling or wagon manage­ment, to wagon fle­xi­bi­li­ty. There is poten­ti­al ever­y­whe­re to meet future requi­re­ments with innovations.

What does it take for such inno­va­tions to be realised?

Peter Knaus: I am a mem­ber of the FOT expert com­mit­tee for tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions. The fede­ral govern­ment is very open here and sup­ports inno­va­tions that bring long-term bene­fits. The can­ton of Grau­bün­den is also very open to inno­va­tions and sup­ports them to the best of its abili­ty if they bring eco­no­mic and eco­lo­gi­cal benefits.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: In regio­nal pas­sen­ger trans­port, it took pres­su­re from a pri­va­te eco­no­mic play­er like Goog­le to get things moving. That would pro­ba­b­ly be good for us too. It would be exci­ting if a mar­ket third party were to build up pressure.

What do you think about Euro­pe-wide inte­gra­ted data platforms?

Peter Knaus: An exci­ting start­ing point for the play­ers in freight trans­port, and not just on the rail­ways. The deve­lo­p­ment of this is chal­len­ging, and I’m not sure whe­ther ever­yo­ne would make their data available. Curr­ent­ly, our cus­to­mers can use track­ing to see where the loa­ding equip­ment is curr­ent­ly loca­ted. This allows a mine­ral oil trans­port cus­to­mer, for exam­p­le, to orga­ni­se their and our sche­du­ling more effi­ci­ent­ly. I would wel­co­me grea­ter con­sis­ten­cy with our cus­to­mers, espe­ci­al­ly when it comes to tim­ber loading.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: We would have to equip the wagons with track­ing devices. Only then could we take fur­ther steps towards data exch­an­ge, inclu­ding across modes of trans­port. We at MGBahn are less con­cer­ned about this becau­se we have a local focus.

Where do you see the grea­test levers for advan­cing rail freight transport?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: In making the rail freight sys­tem more fle­xi­ble. We will never be as fle­xi­ble as road trans­port. But we must be able to react more quick­ly to cus­to­mer needs and play to the strengths of the rail­ways. The poten­ti­al for rail trans­port is huge. The pres­su­re to shift trans­port to rail will come of its own accord.

Peter Knaus: You cer­tain­ly have to dif­fe­ren­tia­te bet­ween metre gauge and stan­dard gauge. We have a mana­geable net­work with metre-gauge tracks. Com­pared to the SBB, we can react very quick­ly. A plan­ned chan­geo­ver of two weeks is quick com­pared to SBB – and slow com­pared to a road trans­port com­pa­ny. The lat­ter swit­ches within days. The more money we have, the fas­ter we can invest in trac­tion units and freight wagons or moder­ni­se the fleet and the more fle­xi­bly we can react to the wis­hes of our customers.

To what ext­ent would more com­pe­ti­ti­on among the rail freight com­pa­nies chan­ge the dyna­mics of the rail freight market?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: More com­pe­ti­ti­on, more dyna­mism. Howe­ver, the entry thres­hold for new play­ers in our mar­ket is very high. If you want to ope­ra­te a freight rail­way, you need a com­pli­ant trac­tion unit and expen­si­ve rol­ling stock. Tha­t’s a dif­fe­rent mat­ter from buy­ing a lorry for a few hundred thousand francs. Examp­les such as Rail­ca­re or Swiss Post show that com­pe­ti­ti­on leads to inno­va­ti­on and price pressure.

Peter Knaus: Com­pe­ti­ti­on is good and encou­ra­ges deve­lo­p­ment. Those respon­si­ble at Rail­ca­re have a very good trans­port logi­stics con­cept, they com­bi­ne road and rail with their own fleet. Com­pe­ti­tor com­pa­nies on the rail­way are also depen­dent on free train paths. They can­not sim­ply set off when they are fully loa­ded. In terms of price, small rail freight ope­ra­tors have the advan­ta­ge that they have to fac­tor in lower overheads.

What do you think of the VAP and what would you recom­mend to our association?

Peter Knaus: I have always had good cont­act with Secre­ta­ry Gene­ral Frank Fur­rer. I was in char­ge of the trans­port logi­stics pro­ject at the regio­nal par­cel cent­re in Unter­vaz. I work­ed very clo­se­ly with the VAP. He was an inde­pen­dent and very valuable pro­ject mem­ber. I find the dia­lo­gue with Frank Fur­rer, Jürg Lüt­scher and other VAP repre­sen­ta­ti­ves, who bring in a ship­per’s per­spec­ti­ve, con­s­truc­ti­ve and exciting.

Peter Lug­in­bühl: I did­n’t know that this asso­cia­ti­on exis­ted until recent­ly. My recom­men­da­ti­on would be for you to make your asso­cia­ti­on bet­ter known among freight trans­port com­pa­nies. I think it’s great what the VAP is doing.

What has­n’t been said yet?

Peter Lug­in­bühl: This dis­cus­sion has given me valuable ideas, thank you for that.

Peter Knaus: Thank you for invi­ting us to this inter­view and giving us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pre­sent ourselves.