Crossrail Benelux

Crossrail Benelux

Industry	Rail freight
Founded	2000 (as Dillen & LeJeune Cargo)
Founder	Ronny Dillen et Jeroen Le Jeune
Headquarters	Deurne, Belgium
Area served	Port of Antwerp, Belgium
Key people	Jeroen LeJeune
Owner	Jeroen LeJeune, Hupac, MSC, LKW Walter, Bertschi AG, GTS
Number of employees	31 (2005)[1] 160 (2009) (whole Crossrail group)
Parent	Crossrail AG (Hupac)
Website

Crossrail Benelux is a Belgian rail freight company, a subsidiary of Crossrail AG; operating in Belgium.

Crossrail's Class 66 near Bruges, Belgium

History

• The company was formed in 2000 as Dillen & LeJeune Cargo (DLC) and was the first private company to haul a freight train in Belgium. On that moment, both founders owns 50% of the shares.

• In October 2001, Hupac enters the capital of DLC before the first train was effectively hauled

• As of April 2002, this first a containers train, hauled for MSC from port of Antwerp to Aachen West station by a Class 66 loc (leased from Porterbrook), and further to Schwandorf station with another Hupac-hired electric locomotive, broke the monopoly of state owned SNCB (Although Belgian freight rail transport was officially opened to private operators only in March 2003, DLC operates based on European directives from 1991 and a security licence for the Belgian rail network).

• A security licence to access the Dutch network was obtained at the beginning of 2003, with a first train hauled to Waalhaven on January the 11th. Trains to and from Zeeland (a part of Netherlands which is not directly connected to the remainder of the Dutch rail network) became a recurring traffic, with the Terneuzen based Bretschi container terminal as client.

• In October 2007, DLC merges with Swiss Babcock & Brown owned Crossrail AG.^[2] Hupac has left the capital of DLC, so the shareholding structure was dispatched between both DLC founders (having 25.5% each) Babcock & Brown for the remainder. The merged company operates as Crossrail AG, with subsidiaries in Belgium and Italy.

• In September 2008, the company finally gets a security licence to train his own drivers.

• Problems between both founders resulted in August 2008 in Jeroen Lejeune leaving the company for a few month.^[3]

• As Babcock & Brown was facing strong difficulties after the global credit crunch, Jeroen Le Jeune came back and bought their 49% shares in August 2009, together with the shares from Ronny Dillen.^[4]

• In September 2009, Crossrail successfully sued Belgian rail network manager Infrabel for having given full priority to passenger traffic instead of fairly treating all rail operators during a strike^[5]

• As the traffic grows, Le Jeune quickly faces liquidity problems and searches partners to refund the company:^[6]
  • The first candidate was no newcomer. Hupac takes a 25% participation on 2010-08-24.^[7]
  • As of February 2012, two clients from the company - Austria based LKW Walter and Général Transport Service (GTS) from Italy acquired respectively 25% an 10% of the shares, with LeJeune group reducing to 40%.^[8]
  • Another two clients : Bertschi AG and MSC had each taken 10% from Le Jeune's shares on July 2012^[9]

See also

• Euro Cargo Rail DB Schenker subsidiary operating in France
• SNCB - Belgian state owned railways

References and notes

Notes

References

External links

• Official website