Tanjung Priok super port - WorldCargo News Online

INTERMODAL
CargoBeamer for Calais-Poland run
French property developer DCB International
is proceeding with Calais
Premier, a new logistics park that
aims to become one of the leading gateways
for goods distribution between the
UK and continental Europe.
Calais Premier is the biggest logistics
project in northern France, with a total
surface area of 160-ha. It is located in the
Turquerie industrial zone, which stretches
along the Calais-Dunkirk railway line
between the Port of Calais and the Channel
Tunnel terminal at Fréthun.
The first phase of the project with a
surface area of 50-ha is due for completion
by 2014 and is expected to have
220,000 m 2 of warehousing, 50,000 m 2
of industrial parks, and 11,000 m 2 of commercial
property. The project owner, the
Cap Calaisis urban community, is planning
to invest €2B to create a railway junction
at the site as well as modernising the
whole Calais-Dunkirk railway line.
On top of that, the Calais 2015 port
project is aimed at doubling the size of
the port. Franck Edouard Tiberghien, strategic
development director of CCI Côte
d’Opale, which manages and operates the
port, says that the plan is to build a new
sea wall to shelter 110-ha of new dock
area to the north of the existing port. The
entrance channel will be dredged to a
depth of 13m and a new rail terminal will
be constructed between the two basins.
The project is estimated at €600M and
is backed by the Nord Pas-de-Calais regional
government. The new berths
would be used for ro-ro and lo-lo as Calais
looks to a wider short sea shipping/
motorway of the sea vocation. “Calais will
assert its strategic position as a European
crossroads,” stated the town’s mayor,
Natacha Bouchart.
Beaming at the gate
As previously reported, Germany-based
CargoBeamer is installing a rail terminal
(called “CargoGate”) at Calais Premier
that will enable standard road semi-trailers
deployed in UK-Continent logistics
flows to be switched onto CargoBeamer
trains. Hence, truck drivers would be required
only for the UK trunk haul and
the crossing to Calais via Eurotunnel or
ferry. (As an aside, it may be worth noting
that with Eurotunnel’s freight shuttle,
there is no alternative to the road tractor
going with the trailer. For a ferry, however,
it may be possible to drop the trailer
in Dover, ship it unaccompanied to Calais
and then engage another tractor head
for the short haul between the port and
the CargoBeamer terminal).
CargoBeamer aims to create a “rail
motorway” connecting the UK and
France with Eastern Europe and Russia.
Speaking at a recent Calais Premier presentation
in London, CargoBeamer’s sales
director Michael Baier said: “Cargo-
Beamer offers the only fully automated
system for transferring non-cranable
semi-trailers on and off the railway. Within
one of our CargoGates, we can shift up
to 10 times more trailers to trains than a
crane terminal can operate.
“We have chosen to base our facility
at Calais Premier as it is strategically an
important location, close to the UK and
the extensive European rail network.”
CargoBeamer uses parallel, rather than
sequential, loading, so trailers can be
loaded on the train within 15 mins.
Very ambitious
CargoBeamer’s long-term goals are highly
ambitious. It aims to have up to 75
CargoGates in Europe, creating a network
of all freight centres and connecting all
European cities, from Glasgow in the
north west to Moscow and Istanbul in
the east. However, a basic constraint would
be the available structure gauge. A
CargoBeamer trailer would not be able
to operate anywhere in the UK, for example,
except on HS1 between the Channel
Tunnel mouth at Cheriton and London-Barking.
As previously reported, CargoBeamer
has conducted extensive trials with its
prototype CargoGate in Leipzig, where
the company is based. And as reported in
the January 2013 edition of WorldCargo
News (p1), Volkswagen is committing to
a CargoBeamer service for trailers loaded
with automotive parts. CargoGates will
be built at the VW plant in Wolfsburg and
in Bettembourg in Luxembourg. On detraining
in Bettembourg, the trailers will
be transferred by terminal tractors to the
Lorry-Rail service using the Modalohr
horizontal technique between Bettembourg
and Perpignan. In Perpignan the
trailers will be switched to road for onward
shipment into Spain.
Berlin and Legnica
The first CargoBeamer service from Calais
Premier will operate to Berlin and then
onwards to Legnica in southern Poland.
Corresponding CargoGate terminals will
be built in both locations. This means that
distinct Berlin-Calais and Berlin-Legnica
services could be offered as well as Calais-Berlin-Legnica.
Initially, says Cargo-
Beamer’s managing director Hans-Jürgen
Weidemann, there will be two train/pairs
week, but it is hoped to develop business
up to daily train pairs. The company is
currently analysing the details of its service
schedule with the rail track authorities
and prospective traction partners.
The Channel tunnel is not competitive
for UK-Germany/Eastern Europe
rail freight. CargoBeamer at least gets the
traffic off the roads on the Continent.
On the designated route, the
CargoBeamer trains have a capacity for
36 wagons (ie 36 trailers) with a maxi- Marshalling a standard road trailer alongside the CargoBeamer wagons
Technology
and efficiency
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WorldCargo
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May 2013 63