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October 21, 2012
The Economist: Do Europe's transport corridors help or hurt the EU Single Market?
Trains, boats and planes. You have clients or customers selling within, out of or into Europe? See Charlemagne's "Coming off the Rails". Excerpt:
So a train carrying Volvo cars from Sweden to Italy must change locomotives and crews three or four times. It could be held up in bottlenecks in Germany and Austria. Before entering Italy over the Brenner Pass, the crew must stop to switch the reflective panels at the rear with warning lights.
Thalys high-speed passenger trains may zip between Paris, Amsterdam and Cologne. But on some older sections of track in Germany they slow to a crawl, and they must carry seven boxes of expensive signalling gear.
How is it possible to promote competition and get freight off the roads when new models of rolling stock have to be separately certified in each country?
Graphic: The Economist and Peter Schrank
Posted by JD Hull at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)