Governments aid Euro Carex terminals

The French, Belgian and Dutch governments have together pledged €90m (US$119m) towards the construction of Euro Carex terminals at Paris RoissyCDG, Liège and Amsterdam Schiphol airports.

"This will silence the critics of the project who said that while good on paper it would struggle to secure financing, " says Yanick Paternotte, president of Roissy Carex.

The project aims to create a pan-European high-speed rail service for express and air cargo currently handled by truck and short and mid-haul flights, and brings together major cargo players at the Paris hub such as Air France, FedEx, TNT, UPS, La Poste and WFS, the Paris airports authority (AdP) as well as public authority agencies.

The first Euro Carex trains are earmarked to operate from end-March 2012, but funding has yet to be found for an initial investment in rolling stock - estimated at €200m, on the basis of eight trains (with a unit cost of €25m) each carrying between 100150 tonnes of palletised cargo.

Paternotte added that the project received another boost recently with a report from France’s rail track authority, RFF, which concluded that train slots Euro Carex requires between 10pm and 6am on the proposed Paris-Lyon route can be reconciled with track maintenance taking place during this period.

"This report shows that any delays incurred on journey times of Euro Carex trains on this route due to maintenance would not have the effect of compromising the viability of the service and its schedules, " he said.

"One would expect now that maintenance issues would not be insurmountable on the other routes we are planning."