Congestion at the border crossing– During peak seasons, the capacity of trains is fully reached as companies want to send enough cargo to satisfy demand. The capacity for departing trains from China is unlimited due to the many terminals. However, there are a limited number of border points to process these trains during the journey. These border points can only handle a fixed number of trains per day. More trains per day arrive at the border points in peak seasons compared to how many can be processed, leading to a bottleneck and congestion.
Congestion at the rail origin terminals – When the border points become too heavily congested, which leads to slower and more difficult terminal operations, the origin terminals sometimes have to delay departures or even cancel them for a certain period.
Congestion at the rail destination terminal – When there is significant traffic of trains, leading to the congested origin and border point terminals, the arrival terminals also experience difficulties. Arriving containers that should generally be available for pickup within 1-2 days can take 3-4 days to be released.
Significant other events – Sometimes congestion can form due to significant external events, besides regular peak seasons (April – June, half-year, October, Christmas, and the end of the year). They can create congestion when there isn’t one or significantly worsen existing congestion. Some examples of such events are the ever-given Suez Canal incident, Malaszewice (border point) container accident; Benelux and west Germany floods; etc.