European Railroad Discussion > Europe: DB and ÖBB to Pay Heavy Cartel Fines

European Commission Cartel admistration has fined 49 million Euros from Deutsche Bahn and ÖBB (Austrian Railways) for block train haulage cartel in 2004 - 2012. Kühne and Nagel was also part of the deal, but avoided fines after it helped reveal details of the crime after EC had researched and found proof of the happening. EC told that three companies had allocated customers, coordinated prices and exchanged confidential information. EC commissioner leading the investigation said further that she was disappointed that the three companies decided to hamper the success of the green rail transportation mode by acting this way. 

Comment: fines from EC can sometimes be many hundred million Euros and up to 10% of the yearly turnover, just to scare companies to act properly, so it seems like this time K&N, DB and ÖBB got off lightly punished. Probably this will not be the case if similar behavior happens again.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/15 02:20 by McKey.

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Off topic question:
Is the first picture a "hump yard", with the "hump" in the background?. After a track is full, is the track protected form further movements followed by yard personnel linking the cars together? Then a locomotive pulls the wagons clear. I see the catenary ends part way along the track.

Does anyone know the location of photo #1?  I see that photo #2 was taken at Innsbruck Westbahnhof.

Yes, this is part of the Maschen yard in Hamburg. It has just about all services freight trains need, including classifiaction and locomotive service and parking places (which resemble car park ;)
3) "Lcomotive park"...gives you an idea how formidable Deutsche Bahn is.

It looks to me that this yard, as all modern yeards in Europe, uses automatic retarders. These can set the humped car to a certain speed (not too fast and not too slow). Obviously the same devices can also stop the car with ease once the track is full. Safety of the personnel must be number one priority anyway. Maybe one of our German friends could shed some more light to humping here? It is dangerous work: linking all the cars together with the chain link and finding room between cars and side buffers. You don't really wish any movements from the cars...yet I know with coupling there are huge momentums involved so just last week when a brakeman went between the locomotive and the rake of cars the whole train moved a meter (3 feet) when locomotive pressed its side buffers so that the cars won't move back and forth once coupling is done and train on the way. Not a nice idea being there when train moves unintentionally a little. 
Sorry, I can't find pictures from my collection of this device right now so hopefully someone else here will post this.

In Europe, for now, electric locomotion has been used by just about all companies (except for Danish and some ex. Soviet colonies where electricification was very limited). There are pros and cons for both electric and diesel traction, so maybe I better just say that this is a Western European way building systems. Every year I see more and more lines being electrified. This year Sweden btw. celebrates 100 years of RR electrification in September as Malmbana (picture 4) was electrified then.  

nm2320 Wrote:
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> Off topic question:
> Is the first picture a "hump yard", with the
> "hump" in the background?. After a track is full,
> is the track protected form further movements
> followed by yard personnel linking the cars
> together? Then a locomotive pulls the wagons
> clear. I see the catenary ends part way along the
> track.

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I don't understand the allegations that led to the fines.

That divisions of the OBB & DB along with logistics company. K&N fixed prices and shared confidential information for certain freight flows between Central and SE Europe, in other words the market was not competitive. This is in breach of EU anti trust laws.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/15 02:26 by 86235.

Regarding the hump shunting issue, I was at Muttenz (Basel) a couple of days ago  and was very struck by the fact the large and modern yard is equipped with hump and retarders.
How much freight in western Europe is still shunted en route? I know that in the UK we have no hump shunting now, and virtually all freight traffic is in trainloads, while France has very few yards left.  Does anyone have figures for other countries?

spflow Wrote:
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> Regarding the hump shunting issue, I was at
> Muttenz (Basel) a couple of days ago  and was
> very struck by the fact the large and modern yard
> is equipped with hump and retarders.
> How much freight in western Europe is still
> shunted en route? I know that in the UK we have no
> hump shunting now, and virtually all freight
> traffic is in trainloads, while France has very
> few yards left.  Does anyone have figures for
> other countries?

The highest percentage is carried in Switzerland, followed by the Eastern European and Baltic countries(although it is falling), then Germany, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal in that order by percentage rather than raw totals.

Off the top of my head I can think of 12 full-featured humpyards in Germany, plus several mini-humpyards, 3 in Austria(plus several minihumps), 3 in Switzerland (plus 2 mini).

All of the German humpyards employ Diesel powered shunting locomotives, so only parts of the humpyard needed by the mainline electric locomotives are electrified.

Basel's Muttenz Yard employ's Diesel shunting locomotives, while Limmatal Yard near Zürich and Triage Yard near Lausanne use electric shunters as hump pushers but Diesels for other duties. Reportedly SBB has leased 5 ÖBB Class 1063 electric shunters for use at Triage Yard.

For further information on efforts to hold onto carload volumes by the European Railways see  http://www.xrail.eu/about.html

Thanks very much for the info - it is rather as I thought. To maintain any level of wagonload freight requires an active political slant towards it. Personally I think this is a good thing but I suppose you have to accept a high degree of public intervention in freight transport policies. I am not sure that EU transport policy properly recognises the various nuances and implications of trying to apply an absurdly simplisitic MBA based approach to "competition"policy.

I blame MIT, the London Business School and L'Ecole Polytechnique!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/15 07:33 by spflow.

I don't necessarily disagree with your comment about politics being involved to promote rail freight, but given the large volume of mixed car freight traffic (and shunting yards), I'd have to give some credibility to it being because the railroads themselves are pursuing that type of traffic as a business model. That's likely the main reason it exists, that they still go after it. Europe is a very truck competitive market, meaning lots of smaller volume freight shipments, and to dump carload traffic and go to just unit trains, would very likely eliminate a fair chunk of freight still moving by rail. As long as the carload traffic is profitable, I don't see anything wrong with the railroads moving it.

I'm not super familiar with the U.K.'s situation as you are, but I thought it was an on purpose decision years ago to dump carload traffic and just go to unit trains in the U.K., am I right on that? So the business seems like it was driven away on purpose, but didn't go away necessarily because it wasn't desired by shippers in the U.K. Open for corrections on my thoughts, of course.

You are not implying that cartel would be OK are you?

spflow Wrote:
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> Thanks very much for the info - it is rather as I
> thought. To maintain any level of wagonload
> freight requires an active political slant towards
> it. Personally I think this is a good thing but I
> suppose you have to accept a high degree of public
> intervention in freight transport policies. I am
> not sure that EU transport policy properly
> recognises the various nuances and implications of
> trying to apply an absurdly simplisitic MBA based
> approach to "competition"policy.
>
> I blame MIT, the London Business School and
> L'Ecole Polytechnique!

Bunny218 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not super familiar with the U.K.'s situation
> as you are, but I thought it was an on purpose
> decision years ago to dump carload traffic and
> just go to unit trains in the U.K., am I right on
> that? So the business seems like it was driven
> away on purpose, but didn't go away necessarily
> because it wasn't desired by shippers in the U.K.
> Open for corrections on my thoughts, of course.

Yes you are, it was a concious decision. EWS tried to reverse the trend with their Enterprise wagonload network, which built on work done by one of the 'shadow' franchises before EWS acquired them. But the lack of private sidings and the demands of the passenger businesses meant it never developed beyond a skeletal network, which still exists today in a very truncated form.

Thanks much for your reply. And no, not implying a cartel would be okay at all.

McKey Wrote:
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> You are not implying that cartel would be OK are
> you?
>
Not neccessarily, but we are overwhelmed by cartels. monopolies, corruptions, tax avoidance etc in every sphere of our economic world. I just think one has to be a careful about applying simple rules to policiy issues that may have complex and debatable outcomes. EU "competition policy" is one such area in which what what may seem like an obviously good thing in a perefct world has all kind a consequences in the real and messy world of freight transport.

I don't think anyone really thinks cartels are OK, but there's economic theory, and then there's the real world.   And in the real world, "pure, free competition" rarely exists on a macroeconomic level.  There is always some level of "agreement" between the major supposed competitors.

spflow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> McKey Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > You are not implying that cartel would be OK
> are
> > you?
> >
> Not neccessarily, but we are overwhelmed by
> cartels. monopolies, corruptions, tax avoidance
> etc in every sphere of our economic world. I just
> think one has to be a careful about applying
> simple rules to policiy issues that may have
> complex and debatable outcomes. EU "competition
> policy" is one such area in which what what may
> seem like an obviously good thing in a perefct
> world has all kind a consequences in the real and
> messy world of freight transport.

Absolutely right, idealistics rarely meet real World. Besides, thinking again people and having read economics years ago, fierce competition is even worse than monopoly situation (which is near cartel situation) for everyones ends: workers, customers, companies and public sector suffers. Here we need innovation, which I think is the key factor for progress for everyone. If we just keep cutting cost without innovation and progress, end results will be very bad. With innovation it looks like any economic model seems to be thriving more or less (looking at both West and East).

chs7-321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think anyone really thinks cartels are OK,
> but there's economic theory, and then there's the
> real world.   And in the real world, "pure, free
> competition" rarely exists on a macroeconomic
> level.  There is always some level of "agreement"
> between the major supposed competitors.
>