It is over 1,500 kilometers from the glass factory in the town of Tczew in Poland to Hemnesberget outside Mo i Rana. Here on the Helgeland coast, the company Natre produces windows and doors for the Norwegian market, using Polish raw materials. Until 2021, approximately one lorry of glass per day traveled the entire long way. Until then, trains had not been a good alternative, but then the transport company Bring came up with a solution that ensured the use of rail almost all the way. – We made a plan where a truck is driven from the factory in Poland to the ferry port towards Sweden, then it is driven by train from Trelleborg, into Norway through Østfold and all the way to Mo, and then by car the last part, says John Asak in Bring Production manager Thomas Lie at Natre window factory likes that the glass comes by train instead of truck all the way from Poland. Photo: Thomas Sætveit Jensen / TV Clip Thomas Lie is production manager at the Natre window factory in Hemnes. – We switched to trains because it is more environmentally friendly, and it is also safer. That way we get many trailers off the roads, he says. The transition to trains means that around 200 fewer lorries make the long journey each year. Bring has calculated that it saves 800 kilos of CO₂ emissions for each container sent by train instead of truck. This means that there are six times less emissions on rail compared to road transport. The country road was not the best way to transport glass either. The lorries had to cross the mountain, and there has been less waste since the goods started going on rails. A wagon load of glass from Poland arrives daily at Mo i Rana by train. It can compete with road transport and is safer in several ways, Natre believes. Photo: Thomas Sætveit Jensen / TV Klipp Several are following the same track The window manufacturer is in good company. IKEA and Ringnes are among the companies that use trains to a large extent to transport their goods, and several are requesting freight solutions on rails. – The use of trains has been increasing, and now we transport 70-80 per cent of the goods by train from our central warehouses in Sweden. That amounts to 11-12,000 railcars a year, says head of customer logistics at IKEA, Teodor Bäckström. Ikea is one of the major players in rail freight, and transports large batches of goods from warehouses in Sweden. Now they are going to build a new, large warehouse in Vestby. Photo: NTB He says that they work continuously to look for sustainable transport solutions. – The climate footprint on rail is smaller than when the goods are transported by road, he says. The amount of rail freight in and out of the country increased last year by 16 per cent, according to CargoNet. Now there are three times as many freight trains between Oslo and Sweden as there were a couple of years ago. What is increasing the most is general cargo, i.e. all possible types of goods Norwegians order from abroad. Competing on price – Trains have had a reputation for being cumbersome and too slow, says commercial director Carl Fredrik Karlsen at the Vy-owned freight company CargoNet. There are few opportunities to drive trains from door to door, as you can with trucks. But for the slightly longer distances, the train is a good alternative. – Especially on transports of 30-40 miles or more, the train can be beneficial. This will often apply to companies that source raw materials from Europe. Naturally, the price also played a role for Natre in Hemnes. About every day a goods train with a wagon full of glass arrives at Natre on the Helgeland coast. Here with one of Cargonet’s new hybrid locomotives. Photo: Thomas Sætveit Jensen / TV Klipp – We chose trains when we received an offer from Bring that was economically competitive, says Kjetil Gjerland, who is responsible for production and logistics at Natre Vindusfabrikk. They also experience that the train has fewer delays and is not stopped so easily by bad weather, especially in winter when it can be demanding on the mountain passes. But how much is there room for? Although more and more companies are thinking about switching to shipping their goods by rail, it is not just a matter of showing off. It is a political goal to move more goods from road to rail and sea, but the bottlenecks are queuing up on narrow tracks to increase even more by train. It is about the fact that much of the railway is single-track in this country. This applies to most of the main line into the country from Europe, the Østfold Line, but also the Kongsvinger Line. This means that the goods must jostle with the passenger trains for space. The Alnabru terminal is becoming too small to take off the increasing amounts of goods on trains. Several freight operators are again pointing to Vestby as a suitable location for yet another terminal. Photo: NTB Then there are challenges with the capacity of the freight terminals. The goods that arrive in Norway must be reloaded to be taken further by train to different parts of the country. Today, this happens almost exclusively at the Alnabru terminal in Oslo, and the capacity here is starting to be blown up. – If we are to increase the amount of train freight, arrangements must be made to reload more trains in Eastern Norway, says Carl Fredrik Karlsen in CargoNet. Want terminal in Vestby Several of the major freight operators, such as Posten/Bring, Ikea, Asko and CargoNet, have once again highlighted Vestby, south of Oslo, as a suitable location for an additional freight terminal for trains. This option was put aside several years ago because it was considered too expensive. But now these companies believe that a train terminal can be realized here which is far more affordable. State Secretary Cecilie Knibe Kroglund welcomes an initiative for a freight terminal in Vestby, but will not pay for it. Photo: Kai Stokkeland The Ministry of Transport writes in a reply to news that there is a need to strengthen the Alnabru terminal even more. But there are no plans for a Vestby terminal, writes State Secretary Cecilie Knibe Kroglund. – There is no money in the budgets for a goods terminal in Vestby, but we are positive about private players’ initiatives for terminals, she replies.
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Transfers to transporting goods on the railway – news Oslo og Viken – Local news, TV and radio
