Shutoffs at world’s major trade routes evolving as Europe’s busiest freight line remains closed & cargo still stuck in Egypt

Europe’s busiest freight train route connecting Genoa and Rotterdam won’t be able to resume operations until April after a massive rock slide that choked tracks in the Rhine Gorge, a World Heritage Site in Germany.

“We are assuming that operations will be resumed in April,” Volker Hentschel, board member for asset and maintenance management at DB Netz AG of Deutsche Bahn, said as quoted by FAZ, Frankfurt-based media.

One of the major European trade routes was closed on March 15 after a rock slide that left about 15,000 cubic meters of loose rock in the area.

“Of course, we want the trains on the right [bank of the] Rhine to start rolling again as quickly as possible, but safety comes first,” the official said, stressing that the extensive securing of the slope with nets can only begin after further blasting of loose rock.

Freight trains are reportedly being diverted to the left bank of the Rhine, while passengers are carried by temporary bus shuttles on the right bank of the river.

The statement comes shortly after Salvager, the Dutch company working on releasing a giant container ship grounded in the Suez Canal, said the troubled cargo would be freed by the start of next week if heavier tugboats succeed in dislodging the vessel. The Panama-flagged container ship Ever Given got stuck in the canal – one of the world’s busiest water routes – on Tuesday, after it veered off course in high winds.

More news regarding roadblocks came from China, where a truck carrying an Evergreen shipping container crashed, causing a massive traffic jam on the Changchun-Shenzhen Expressway in Nanjing.

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