By Sebastián Betancourt
The State Railway Company (EFE) launched a tender last October to develop a basic study to define the establishment of an intermodal station in the Yolanda sector of Valparaíso, a city whose port moved 0.16% of its cargo by train in 2024. While the initiative opened the door for the railway mode to regain its share in the port’s logistics, the state-owned company observed that achieving this purpose represents a major challenge, given the characteristics of the territory in which the railway line is located.
In that sense, the president of EFE, Eric Martin, explained that “the particular case of Valparaíso is of course a greater challenge. We know that the city and the logic of the port meant that, at some point, the tracks became cramped; furthermore, it has slopes that are also significant. Being able to rescue areas where there is space to deposit containers or train sets to wait for the tracks to be available is undoubtedly a possibility that we are going to promote as a first stage.”
According to the head of Ferrocarriles, enabling spaces for the intermodal transfer of cargo in Valparaíso will allow for the search for solutions that, combined with the use of technologies, optimize the operation of the railway tracks and the handling of cargo traveling to and from the port.
“We are looking for a solution that will be a combination of technology, good track operation, and efficient management of loading and unloading in sectors like Yolanda, which would serve as storage or a buffer to have a quick discharge to the port and to take containers in train format to remove them from the area,” said the industrial civil engineer.
The route that offers connection to the port is also part of the journey used by the passenger service linking Valparaíso with Limache, whose operation generates a time limitation for the circulation of freight trains only during the night. Faced with the possibility of resuming daytime transit of convoys to the maritime terminal, Eric Martin indicated that it is not an idea being considered for now, although it cannot be ruled out in the future either.
In this regard, the president of EFE commented that “I never rule anything out. One of the central issues is that technologies sometimes work faster than one even realizes. For example, there are certain mechanisms that make trains talk to each other, so you can have trains running closer together. There, the production frontier is pushed, because you can have a smoother operation.
In that case, if you have freight trains that are longer and slower than a passenger one, one could look for some compatibility to, using the same tracks for now, have a combined operation.”
“We are not doing it now, by the way, but I say that, when we have more sophisticated systems, which we are indeed working on with a very large signaling project for the entire network, we will probably have an opportunity to look at the problem differently and, therefore, the solutions appear different from the ones we have today,” he stated.
Integrated Transport
Eric Martin commented that, from the state-owned company’s perspective, the logistics concept is not reduced to just the railway, but is understood as the set of actors and elements that participate within the chain, including cargo generators, collection centers, and transfer stations that allow the interaction of more than one mode in the process.
In this regard, Martin pointed out that “for us, it is very important to have set up the subsidiary EFE Logística and the name is not trivial, it is logistics, because we understand the freight transport system as a combination of many factors. It is not just transport, it has to do with warehouses, exchange points, and there appear, of course, all the points within the network that, in our judgment and that of the users, both the cargo generators and the carriers, allows for integration with other modes.”
“The port is, without a doubt, an almost default condition for the model’s construction, but there are also land ports or land areas where trucks can arrive and load the trains, in addition to consolidating cargo,” added the president of the state-owned company.
Furthermore, the industrial civil engineer highlighted the advantages offered by the railway for the transportation of goods, which can capture the attention of cargo generators to incorporate this means into their transport dynamics, both in terms of capacity and the environmental sphere.
In this line, Martin expressed that “we have two or three perspectives on where we have advantages. One of them is the issue of volume, because you have a train with many cars and, by also having control over the track, it allows us to define the time slots and have a certain degree of transport certainty. This also has a strong impact regarding cargo insurance; the frictions to which trucks are subjected are greater than the frictions to which the train is subjected, and therefore, we believe there is an interesting area for development from the point of view that there is also an attraction there.”
“A third element also has to do with warehouses and waiting. When you wait in a port, that has a cost that can be relevant and sometimes it doesn’t even depend on the port operation. If there are swells and they leave the ships waiting, that is a Delta T -difference between two time values- that you do not control.
Then, we have the logic of the train and its mobility, which we can expect will pave the way and not hinder the operation of the port, the operation of the railway, or the streets, where there is a social order benefit,” he added.
“While it is true that all the transport done today is with diesel locomotives, even so, we pollute less, we contribute to reducing the carbon footprint that, sometimes, even internationally, is scrutinized regarding how products are produced, where logistics also has its component and could disturb or reduce interest, if it has a very high carbon footprint,” explained the head of EFE.
