Germany has done nothing to develop its side of the Betuwe freight-only railway line from Rotterdam to the Ruhr industrial area for the past 10 years, Oliver Wittke, transport minister in Nordrhein-Westfalia, says in today’s Volkskrant.

This means that some 25% of the railway’s capacity may well go unused from 2013 because the necessary extra track will not been built, the paper says.
The Dutch side of the project cost €4.6bn to build but only 23 goods trains have used the railway since it was formally opened in mid-June.