HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder throughput up to 813,100 TEU in 2013
Around half a million boxes were handled by rail at the HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) last year. This means that CTA was by far Germany’s largest rail terminal in terms of container throughput in 2013. This success gives a boost to Hamburg, Europe’s largest railway port, the company said in its press release.
Exactly 496,762 boxes – the equivalent of 813,100 standard containers (TEU) – were handled by rail at CTA in 2013. Compared to 2008, the year before the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis, this represents an increase of almost 40 % in throughput handled by rail. This means that rail throughput at the CTA grew at a much faster pace than the throughput handled by all other modes of transport. Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has made a whole range of investments to further improve the efficiency with which railway boxes are handled at CTA over the past few years as part of its intermodal strategy. The addition of a second railway siding has increased the flexibility of the facility and enables additional trips. It is also now possible to control the sequencing and arrival of trains centrally thanks to a new control and signalling system. Finally, electrically powered vehicles are used to check the trains that are ready for departure. This means that even this part of the transport chain can be performed without any carbon emissions.
Oliver Dux, CTA Managing Director, explains: “Handling 500,000 boxes by rail – this is a great success for us. We owe this success first and foremost to our customers, who opted to use the commercially attractive and environmentally friendly rail-based system. We played our part by making a whole host of investments and changes to our processes. Another key reason for the sharp rise in rail throughput is capital expenditure made by the Hamburg Port Authority in the port railway over the past few years. At CTA, efficient handling processes go hand-in-hand with a high performing hinterland system.”
The Container Terminal Altenwerder utilises with a very high degree of automation and electrification. HHLA operates a total of three container terminals in Hamburg.
CTA’s largest individual customer and train operator is DB Schenker Rail. Dr. Bernd Pahnke, Port Liaison Officer for DB Schenker Rail, adds: “The Container Terminal Altenwerder is a very strong railway handling terminal, both in terms of quantity and quality. The reliability of its processes is of paramount importance to us. For this reason, we are very pleased to see how the systems of CTA and the port railway interlock with each other.”