West Europe - Area 4

On 8 January 2019 the Danish Safety Authority has banned the circulation of semitrailers on pocket wagons on the Danish railway network. The triggering event for this decision was the tragic accident, which occurred on 2 January 2019 on the Storebælt Bridge during which, according to preliminary information, parts of a semitrailer collided with a passenger train under heavy weather conditions.

The ban has a validity of 14 days. It can be lifted if the single railway undertaking submits documentation that proves the correct fixing of the kingpin of the semitrailers into the supporting bock of the pocket wagon. Hupac cooperates with its railway partners in order to fulfil these additional documentation requests and to get the permission to circulate again with its fleet of pocket wagons.

In order to maintain the traffic in this difficult environment, Hupac has developed a number of alternative solutions:

Busto <=> Taulov

Rerouting from/to Hamburg.

Cologne <=> Malmö

The trains run without pocket wagons and enable the transport of containers and swap bodies only.

With this offer, we can handle almost 50% of the transport demand on our relation Italy/Germany/Scandinavia.