European private rail freight operator Lineas has increased the capacity on its trains to enhance cargo transportation.

The water in the river Rhine has reduced to significantly low levels due to which the barge traffic on the river has been suspended.

To ensure the supply chain continuity, the rail operator has planned to operate fourteen weekly Xpress services and extra capacity to the Mannheim region from 15 June.

This additional service and capacity will help in the shift to rail from barge.

According to Bloomberg, the low water levels in the Rhine in 2018 suspended the barge transport, which led to a drop of 0.7% in the GDP of Germany.

The current levels of water in the river are said to be the lowest in five years.

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Lineas CCO Lars Redeligx said: “Seeing the continuous drop of the water level, Lineas has proactively scheduled additional connections to ensure that transports can keep flowing. With up to 14 weekly Xpress trains along the Rhine and additional capacity to the Mannheim region, we offer our customers high frequency and flexible capacity access without the need to book entire block trains.”

“We are also in close contact with barge operators to serve the needs of the market. Multimodal solutions can keep goods flowing in Europe, no matter the weather.”

With the additional capacity for block trains and conventional SWL, the company will be able to offer 50% more capacity.

Lineas has increased the frequency of Swiss Xpress to eight RTRs while the Austria / Slovakia Xpress is extended up to six RTRs each week, with extensions to Hungary.

It has added capacity on the Mannheim service up to three RTRs each week to Mannheim, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe.