The Philippine National Railways (PNR) is planning to overhaul the existing rail line between Laguna and Albay so it can be used for freight by next year. But the operation of cargo trains between Calamba and Legazpi will only be at night, so as not to disrupt passenger operations. The initial plan is to do one freight trip nightly, targeting food and beverage cargo.
The project will require the construction of a dry port in Calamba as well as Legazpi. Shifting cargo to trains from trucks is an idea long overdue. One freight trip can carry the equivalent of 12 container vans. Trucks can take over after cargo is offloaded in Legazpi City. A better plan is to have freight trains also run to and from the ports in Manila and Batangas City.
As early as 2016, I already pushed for the use of rail for cargo, and for Calamba’s consideration as a regional center for the Greater Metro Manila-Southern Luzon hub. A similar regional center should also be considered for Clark in Pampanga as the gateway to the Central Luzon hub, and for Urdaneta, Pangasinan for Northern Luzon.
As I noted in a previous column, Calamba is only about 60 kilometers to Batangas City port and is a similar distance to Manila ports — putting it in the middle of both international harbors. It is also roughly 80 kilometers to Nasugbu, Batangas on the West Coast, and about 85 kilometers to Mauban, Quezon on the Eastern Coast. Moreover, Calamba can be accessed by road and rail.
Calamba is a progressive urban center that can provide sufficient and efficient utilities and public and private services. It has enough land for a dry port for rail cargo and for warehouses and cold storage facilities. The city and its nearby areas like Cabuyao and Sta. Rosa also offer a large pool of resident and transient human resources.
Calamba is likewise near industrial estates and manufacturing hubs that produce for the export and local markets. To date, products manufactured in Laguna and Cavite all end up getting trucked to ports or their buyers. The same goes for production inputs that are imported from abroad. They are trucked to production facilities in Laguna, Cavite, and Batangas.
Calamba is well situated as it is accessible by a vast network of tollways that can bring cargo on trucks to any point in Luzon. But if cargo can also move by train from Manila’s ports to Calamba and then all the way to Batangas City port, or to Legazpi further south, then logistics will be easier for everybody. This will also help reduce traffic congestion and road damage from trucks with heavy loads. North of Manila, cargo can also move by rail all the way to Clark and Urdaneta.
Locating cold storage facilities in Calamba and Legazpi will be a big plus in helping transform Calamba into a regional food terminal in the south. The same can be done for Clark and Urdaneta, for Central and Northern Luzon. Farm produce — particularly perishable goods — and other food and beverage can get faster access to various markets through freight rail.
In 1968, through Presidential Decree No. 347, the Greater Manila Terminal Food Market (GMTFM) was put up in Taguig. It was located right next to the rail line. From an agricultural trading hub and market from 1969, it also became an Agro-Industrial Commercial Estate in 1973. From direct trading of agricultural commodities, storage, and food processing, it subsequently expanded its service capability to include retailing, transport services, and real estate leasing.
It was renamed Food Terminal, Inc. (FTI) in 1974 and later became a government corporation. Before it was privatized and its property sold for redevelopment, FTI served as the metropolitan gateway to farm produce from the provinces of Quezon, Batangas, Cavite, and Laguna. It hosted a lot of food producers during its time and was accessible by both road and rail.
I believe Calamba is well-positioned to replicate FTI, and host facilities like storage, food processing, research and quality control, marketing services, and trading. FTI had a Central Refrigerated Warehouse (CRW) with chilling rooms, freezer storage, ice plant, blast freezers, and refrigerated processing rooms. It also had a slaughterhouse; a chicken dressing plant; a multi-purpose warehouse for dry storage; and food-processing facilities for grading, handling, and packaging for foreign market.
At its prime, FTI provided food processing facilities as well as prime industrial and commercial lots for medium- to long-term leases; and industrial buildings with standard-sized stalls ideal for office, warehouse, or small-scale processing operations. As an agro-industrial-commercial estate, it provided leasable facilities and buildings that catered to food producers, manufacturers, exporters, and other sectors in the food industry.
Key here is the government paving the way for intermodal freight transport, even initially from Calamba to Legazpi. We should be able to transport freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, or using ship, rail, and truck without any direct handling of the freight itself when changing modes. This cuts down on cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damage and loss, and allows freight to be transported faster. Rail can also be cheaper and faster than road trucking.
Moreover, freight rail can bring economic dispersal to the regions, decongest Metro Manila traffic, and perhaps bring down the population density in the metropolis through the creation of more jobs in nearby regions. Also, with more efficient logistics, food costs can go down and thus tame inflation.
There was a plan previously for the railway subsidiary of Manila Electric Co. to partner with International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) for cargo rail network operations between the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) in Manila to the Laguna Gateway Inland Container Terminal (LGICT) in Calamba.
The plan’s first phase was to connect the Port of Manila to Calamba. The next phase was to connect Manila to Clark. After, Clark would be connected to Subic, while Calamba would be connected to Batangas. The freight rail was to use eight locomotives and 120 wagons. But for freight rail to be truly viable, it should be able to haul both bulk and containerized cargo. Cargo trains should also be able to run for 24 hours. Heavy gauge at-grade rail can be considered to allow double-stack containers — one shipping container on top of another on a rail car.
In the United States, the Union Pacific and BNSF Railway operate extensive freight networks that coexist with passenger services. But the US primarily uses a dual-track system where one line is dedicated to freight and the other to passengers, optimizing the efficiency and capacity of both services.
Germany’s Deutsche Bahn operates both freight and passenger trains on the same lines, but with sophisticated scheduling and signaling systems to minimize conflicts. In Japan, the JR Freight operates cargo trains on the same lines used by passenger trains, but with strict scheduling to avoid peak passenger times.
While building separate lines for freight and passenger services can be expensive, it offers long-term benefits in terms of capacity and efficiency. However, in many developed countries, the existing rail infrastructure often utilizes shared tracks due to historical development patterns and cost considerations. In our case, shared tracks may be the more viable option.
But if the government will opt for modernizing the railway only for passenger travel, then this may be short-sighted. It will miss the golden opportunity to build things better, and to help further improve trade and commerce and quickly grow the economy by efficiently moving not only people but cargo as well. We should put more cargo on tracks, not trucks.
Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippine Press Council
