The Betuweroute is a double track freight railway between Rotterdam and Germany. Betuweroute is the official name, after the Betuwe area through which the route passes. The line is popularly called Betuwelijn, after an older local rail line in the same region. The line extends into Germany as the Oberhausen–Arnhem railway, and it is part of Project No. 5 of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).

History

In 1985 the Van Bonde Commission began to investigate the future of west–east transport. The main advocate of the proposed line was the then minister Neelie Kroes, later Commissioner in the European Union until 2014. In 1992 the German and Dutch governments signed the Treaty of Warnemünde, which addressed enhancing rail traffic and focused on the tracks from Amsterdam and Rotterdam to Duisburg. The original plan was for three branch rail lines towards Germany. The northern branch via Oldenzaal was abandoned in 1999 and the southern branch via Venlo was abandoned in 2004. Also in 2004, the courts forbade the construction of a large logistics centre near Valburg. In 1988 the Dutch state-owned passenger railway company NS began work on the line. Delayed by two years, the railway was finished mid-2007. The final cost was 4.7 billion euros, more than twice the original budget of 2.3 billion euros, and more than quadruple the initial estimate from 1990 of 1.1 billion euros. The large and rising costs, and criticism about government funding, promoted the government to seek private financing for the line, without success. On 16 June 2007, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands presided over the opening ceremony for the 160 km line that connects Rotterdam to the German border. Despite the TEN-T and bilateral agreements, Germany did not expect to complete reconstruction of their lines that connect with Betuweroute before 2015.

Route

The route is a direct line from the Maasvlakte to Zevenaar, connecting the Port of Rotterdam to Germany. Compared with the previous rail route between Barendrecht and Elst the main deviations are:

Infrastructure

The most striking infrastructure that was built or reconstructed as part of the Betuweroute includes:

Specifications and features

Use

When the line opened, project managers hoped within five years to reach a daily average of 150 freight trains. In the first six months of operation, the unfinished German connection and problems with safety equipment caused traffic to be light. Usage increased steeply over the years 2008–2011. By mid-2011, 78% of all freight trains between Rotterdam and the German border took the Betuweroute. The other freight trains travelled via either Venlo or the border at Bad Bentheim, or used the conventional railway through Arnhem to Emmerich am Rhein Beginning in 2009, the heaviest trains in Germany and the Netherlands, 6,000 tonne trains, transported iron ore between the port of Rotterdam and Dillingen in Germany using the Betuweroute. As of 2019, the Betuweroute carried 4.2 billion ton-kilometers of cargo and 2.3 million train kilometers. Unlike other Dutch rail network tariffs, the tariff charged to train operators to use the Betuwe rail line is not calculated by train weight but by the distance the train travels. Between 2008 and 2011 the tariff has increased progressively from €1.41 per train kilometer to €2.33 per train kilometer.

Controversy

Many Dutch people, experts and politicians such as members of parliament opposed construction of the Betuweroute. The Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management received 14,000 complaints against the northern branch alone, which was cancelled in 1999. GroenFront! (Green Front), one among dozens of activist groups, was responsible for 35 confrontations in 1999–2001. University professors and official institutions heavily criticised the role of the government and ministers in relation to Betuweroute. The main concerns about the Betuweroute were: Several parts of this Controversy section are based on a Dutch scientific investigation.

Municipalities along Betuweroute