The rail terminal at Kiel’s Schwedenkai will get an additional track so that the group of entrance tracks will then be made up of three railway lines.

As a result, the port’s line-up capacity for wagons will be enhanced in order to reduce train movements to and from the shunting station Kiel-Meimersdorf.

Dr Dirk Claus, Managing Director at the PORT OF KIEL (SEEHAFEN KIEL GmbH & Co. KG): “Longer trains allow for higher efficiency in shunting operations and boost the competitive ability of rail freight transport. We make our contribution to climate protection by taking traffic away from the roads and shifting it to rail and sea transport.”

The 300 m long railway track will be laid on the waterside in parallel to the two existing lines running along the Bahnhofskai.

South of the bridge “Hörnbrücke” and the pedestrian crossing it will merge into the terminal entrance track.

The total investment in the track, the switches and the compensatory measures amounts to 1.25 million Euros and is registered for subsidy by the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the European Union.

The construction works will begin in the middle of November and are envisaged to be finished by spring 2020. The pedestrian, bike and supply traffic along the Bahnhofskai will remain unaffected thereby.

In the course of the project two rows of trees need to be removed which will be replaced by newly planted trees of better quality.

More than 500,000 Euros have been budgeted for this measure alone. One the one hand, 40 trees will be planted at the nearby Hörnbad swimming pool as well as 20 fruit trees and there will be created a meadow orchard in the adjacent Gaarden city district.

On the other hand, 49 deciduous trees will be planted along the railway track by the end of March and replace the existing row of trees along the waterside. Urban vegetation and rail freight traffic contribute to better air quality.

By transferring truck transport units to rail transport about 60 grams of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) can be avoided per tonne-kilometre.

As 32,000 trailers and containers are expected to be loaded onto trains at the Schwedenkai Terminal next year, there will be calculative savings of more than 35,000 tonnes of CO2 in the seaport’s hinterland traffic.

Dirk Claus: “Since the resumption of rail freight traffic in 2010 we could transfer most of the growth realised at the Schwedenkai Terminal to rail transport. We want to continue to consistently pursue this strategy with the implementation of the third track.”

Over the last year, experts from both sea and inland ports have been assessing the European railway legislation from a port perspective. This has resulted in a position paper adopted by the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) and the European Federation of Inland Ports (EFIP).

The joint position paper “Ports in the European Rail System” comes to five main conclusions:

1. The implementation of the current EU legislative rail framework should recognise that port authorities manage a complex web of transport, logistics, industry, energy, blue growth and community interests and rail management is generally not their core task. Moreover, the set-up of rail systems in European ports varies considerably in terms of infrastructure development and management, rail operation, charging systems and contractual relations between the port authority and rail operators or undertakings, which makes a one-size-fits-all approach unfit.
2. European ports are at the heart of multimodality. Efficient rail operations and links to and from the ports, as well as within the port, are essential to maximise the use of rail as a sustainable transport mode and to comply with the priorities set in the TEN-T legislation.
3. A special focus should be placed on the investment in, and the development of, last-mile connections, connecting the national rail network via the port rail network to the private terminal sidings. The future Connecting Europe Facility (CEF II) and future CEF II calls should prioritise last-mile connections inside and outside the port area as a priority and Member States should remove any legal or governance obstacle hampering the development of these connections.
4. The principle of autonomous charging has been laid down in the recently adopted Port Services Regulation (EU) 2017/352. For both sea and inland ports, port infrastructure charges are an important tool to pursue their economic, social and environmental strategies. In order to incentivise the use of rail transport, port managing bodies should remain free to choose an integrated or separate rail charging model, as long as it is transparent and non-discriminatory for the rail users.
5. Both sea and inland ports are predominantly situated in, or nearby, urban agglomerations. Freight transport by rail has a good environmental performance and is an effective means to reduce road congestion in densely populated areas. In order to maximise its potential the allocation of high quality freight train paths to and from European ports has be increased.

“Seaports are the gateways to Europe. As the entry and exit points to the land-based TEN-T network, they are at the crossroads of supply chains. To function at their best, European ports must rely on efficient and sustainable hinterland connections; rail can play an important role in that. The work of the port rail expert group has put the finger on some issues that hamper the seamless railway connectivity to and from ports. I hope we can work in the coming years on stepping up our efforts to have our concerns better reflected in the legislation. At the same time, I hope we can step up the dialogue with the rail sector and look at rail as a part of the logistic and supply chain, and not as a solution by itself. Improving the port-rail connectivity to enable efficient cargo flows should be seen as an important element of the completion of the TEN-T”, says ESPO Secretary General Isabelle Ryckbost.

“Inland ports are enablers of green logistics across Europe. As a climate friendly mode of transport, rail is an essential part of that. Rail and inland waterway transport together represent the most optimal, green transport combination. New rail connections and initiatives allow inland ports to connect to markets across the Eurasian continent. It is therefore invaluable that EFIP and ESPO together share their expertise and experiences to identify the port specific issues for rail connectivity. In this way we intend to deepen our cooperation with the rail sector even further and find ways to mutually support each other in tackling Europe’s green logistics challenges”, stated EFIP Director Turi Fiorito.

In line with Government’s focus on improving connectivity to the North Eastern Region (NER), a landmark Container Cargo consignment to sail on inland waterways from Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) to Pandu, Guwahati, the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) terminal.

Shri Gopal Krishna. Secretary (Shipping) flagged off the sailing-vessel, M Y Maheshwari via a video conference from Deep Bhawan at Taratolla. This vessel will carry 53 TEUs (containers) of petrochemicals, edible oil and beverage.

The 12-15 days voyage will be an integrated IWT movement via National Waterway- l (river Ganga), NW-97 (Sunderbans), Indo-Bangladesh Protocol(IBP) route and NW-2(river Brahmaputra).

He said, this is the first ever containerised cargo movement on this Inland Water Transport (IWT) route. The 1425km long movement is expected to establish the technical and commercial viability of IWT mode using these multiple waterways even as a series of pilot movements are planned on the stretch.

Shri Krishna also said that the latest IWT movement is aimed at providing a fillip to North East Region’s industrial development by opening up an alternate route for transportation of raw material and finished goods.

The Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Tracie (PIWTT) between India and Bangladesh allows mutually beneficial arrangements for the use of their waterways for movement of goods between the two countries by vessels of both countries.

The IBP route extends from Kolkata (India) on NW-1 to Silghat (Assam) on NW-2 (River Brahmaputra) and Karimganj (Assam) on NW-16 (River Barak).

Two stretches of Bangladesh inland waterways viz, Sirajganj-Daikhawa and Ashuganj-Zakiganj on the IBP route are being developed at a total cost of Rs 305.84 Cr. on 80:20 cost sharing basis (80% being borne by India & 20% by Bangladesh).

The development of these two stretches is expected to provide seamless navigation to and from North East India through waterways via the IBP route. The contracts for dredging on the two stretches have been awarded for achieving and maintaining requisite depth.