Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has completed the expansion of the rail terminal at its Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) two months sooner than originally calculated. Following the construction period, regular operations will resume as early as 1 August 2016. The CTA’s rail terminal now has nine tracks, instead of the previous seven. The expansion will increase the terminal’s capacity by 140,000 TEU to 930,000 TEU per year.
The distance between the tracks has become smaller, meaning that checking the container data will no longer be done, as before, by terminal staff who would drive along between the trains in vehicles known as “checkmobiles”. For this reason, a “train gate” had to be built. This train gate automatically records the container data as trains enter the terminal. The automatic recording is quicker than the manual recording carried out previously, which means that the train-handling operations can begin sooner.
Dr. Stefan Behn, member of the Executive Board of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG, emphasises the significance of the rail terminal expansion: “The expansion of the rail terminal will enable us to ensure the efficiency of the state-of-the-art HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder. It means that we are well prepared for a further shift in volume towards rail as a mode of transport. We are thus strengthening Hamburg as a rail port.”
Since 2010, annual container throughput at the CTA rail terminal has risen by almost 20 percent to 769,000 TEU in 2015. This means that, once again, CTA’s rail terminal had the highest throughput of any container rail terminal in Germany.
