The Connecting Europe Express, which is one of the European Year of Rail’s most prominent initiatives, has passed through Rotterdam yesterday and arrives today in Antwerp. Arriving in major European port-cities, the interdependencies and mutual reinforcement of European ports and rail freight connections come to the forefront. Increasing the share of rail freight will be an important building block of reaching the EU’s Green Deal objectives and therefore should be a central focus of the European Year of Rail. Most European ports are located close to urban nodes with high pressure on the road network, which makes the increased use of rail freight a necessary choice for many ports. And vice versa, for rail freight operations, a significant share of the cargo transported on the tracks, particularly in high growth markets such as intermodal traffic, passes through the port. (....)