Comparison of the Economic Profitability of a Conventional Freight-Dedicated Railway Corridor and a Heavy Load Freight Corridor

By using mathematical models, this paper will compare the economic profitability of a heavy load freight corridor (30 t per axle) with a conventional freight-dedicated railway corridor (22.5 t per axle). This comparison concerns the construction and operation of a new, single-track of normal gauge, exclusively for freight traffic, and takes into account various demand values of freight volume (10,000-130,000 t daily per direction) and connection length (500km and 1,000 km). Within the framework of this research, the rail infrastructure manager is also the owner of the rolling stock and the operating company. The mathematical model simulates the algorithm “revenues minus expenses” for each of the above railway systems and permits among other things the calculation of the Net Present Value (NPV) of the investment. The results showed that: a) the conventional load corridor can cater for up to approximately 40,000t per day per direction while the heavy freight corridor can carry around three times that volume, b) for daily freight volumes of up to 40,000t, the conventional freight corridor is more profitable c) for loads greater than approximately 25,000t-30,000t, the increase in the connection length results in a marked increase in the economic profitability of both systems since it leads to roughly the doubling of the NPV.