Rail terminal Venlo welcomes first train
The new rail freight terminal in Venlo has recently been officially connected to the public rail network. On Friday, June 26, the first train entered Rail Terminal Greenport Venlo. According to logistics service provider Cabooter Group, a milestone marking the completion of the "train technical part" of the mega project. The terminal will be operational from September.
Rail Terminal Greenport Venlo is, according to Cabooter, the largest inland terminal in the Netherlands and covers a total of 28 hectares and has eight tracks of nine hundred meters. About eight years of planning and consultation preceded the opening. The actual construction started in March this year and resulted in the first fifteen hectares. With the construction of the remaining thirteen hectares, director Hans Cabooter hopes to start before the end of the year. The first part of the terminal will be operational from September 2020.
Millions investment
Cabooter Group has invested more than twenty million euros in the project. In the meantime, the surrounding infrastructure has been upgraded. In total, eleven kilometers of track have been constructed for a total of 50 million euros. The national government, the province of Limburg and the municipalities of Venlo and Horst aan de Maas accounted for this amount.
Councilor of Economy, Labor Market and Higher Education Erwin Boom underlined the importance of this terminal for the entire region. Governments want less and less freight to be transported by road and more and more by inland shipping, or in the case of the new terminal, by rail. Venlo increasingly profiles itself as an important logistics hub.
600,000 TEU per year
The idea for a new, large terminal in the south of the Netherlands came when the government wanted to ease the pressure on the road network around Rotterdam, which could hinder the growth of the port. Cabooter wanted a new terminal because it reached its limits at the current locations in Blerick, Venlo and Kaldenkirchen in Germany. The new facility is not a replacement for one or more of the company's existing terminals, but is intended to be an extension to meet expected demand growth. The terminal has a maximum capacity of 600,000 TEU per year for containers, trailers and swap bodies.
Connections
In addition to a connection with Rotterdam, the company also looks to Southern Europe, for example Italy, and to the north, especially Scandinavia. But Cabooter has also had his eye on Eastern Europe, through a connection with the Hungarian capital Budapest and the Far East. For example, the company has a terminal in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. This should become an important hub for transport to and from China, especially via the New Silk Road. Cabooter mainly thinks of freight from e-commerce.
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