Essen, Germany – On February 8th, the transport ministry in Paris issued the German privatesector
rail company rail4chem GmbH with the safety certificate for operating
on a route of the French rail network. Rail4chem is thus the first foreign
rail carrier able to provide services as an independent operator in France. It
explains that the issuing of the certificate marks the end of an extremely difficult
process, which, following extensive preliminary work, was officially initiated
with the filing of an application in November 2004. Rail4chem’s managing
director Matthias Raith notes: “This represents for us another very
important step towards our goal of providing our customers with uninterrupted
services throughout Europe. France with its central location must
become a natural market for us as fast as possible.” Raith adds that the
procedure leading up to certification, in which Reseau Ferré de France and
the transport ministry as well as SNCF were involved, showed in an exemplary
way how technically simple and yet legally complicated it is to run
cross-border rail services in a united Europe. He admits that the participants
occasionally found it difficult to abandon traditional ideas and appreciate
the opportunities offered by the new parameters of the liberalised rail
market organised on a European basis.

Rail4chem states that it is now systematically proceeding to establish services
from Germany to France for its customers. It is also considering organizing
national services within France, which will soon become possible
with the ending of the cabotage prohibition. Rail4chem is currently concentrating
on equipping or procuring suitable locomotives and recruiting staff. It
points out that cooperation with the partners of the European Bulls alliance
from Spain and Italy is vital for establishing services in France.
Since January 3rd, rail4chem has already been cooperating to provide a
service transporting chemicals to France, operating with its own locomotives
and specially trained train drivers from the Netherlands to Lauterbourg
in Alsace, where SNCF Fret takes over and hands over the trains under a
confidentiality agreement with rail4chem.

Rail4chem provides top-quality, reliable, safe and inexpensive rail freight
services on German and international routes. The fast-growing group is a
joint venture of BASF AG (Ludwigshafen), Bertschi (CH-Dürrenäsch),
Hoyer and VTG AG (both based in Hamburg). The 100% subsidiaries of the
German rail4chem GmbH are rail4chem Benelux B.V. (NL-Rotterdam) and
rail4chem transalpin AG (CH-Muttenz) with permits in the Netherlands/
Belgium and Switzerland respectively. Rail4chem group also provides
transport services to Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy,
France, Hungary and Slovakia in cooperation with partners. Rail4chem now
has over 150 employees. It chalked up more than 3.6 billion tonne km
along with its partners in Europe in 2005.