We continuously work on making our railways more sustainable. In collaboration with contractor Strukton Rail, we managed to place 600(!) of our ECO sleepers in the tracks nearby the Dutch city of Hoorn this last weekend.
The normally used conventional NS90 sleepers consist of Portland cement and are quite harmful for the environment. Furthermore, with the production of Portland cement, a large amount of CO2 is released. According to our commercial director, this is one of the biggest CO2 emission factors in the construction or renovation of a railway: “And we want to do something about it”.
By using the ECO sleepers, the emissions will decrease by at least 20%. Blast furnace cement, or BFC, is used in the production of the ECO sleepers. BFC is composed of rest material from the production of steel and therefore has 20% less CO2 emissions. In addition, the ECO sleepers are sustainable due to the fact that old recycled railway ballast is used as filling in the production of the cement.
Strukton Rail’s ambition is to operate in an environmentally friendly manner and will therefore only use ECO sleepers, even though these are slightly more expensive. “It results in a higher profit for the environment, and that is totally worth it”, according to Tjark de Vries, Director Projects of Strukton Rail.
We would like to thank Strukton Rail for this collaboration and for the use of our ECO sleepers!
