To dovetail with CLdN’s recent announcement to order new and larger vessels, coupled with the enhancement and expansion of terminal facilities, a new intermodal offering is to be launched. This with a view to developing complementary services and strategic solutions, to enhance the growing ferry activities, the company said in its press release.
In a first phase, as part of a larger and ambitious intermodal strategy, CLdN ro-ro will launch a direct rail service from its terminal on Brittanniadok in Zeebrugge to Port Edouard Herriot in Lyon. The initiative reflects the market’s demand for environmental, cost efficient & reliable hinterland services. Next to the latter, CLdN increases its efforts in regard to reducing road miles, offering higher weight specifications at attractive lead times.
Initially a 630m train will be deployed to offer three departures per week from Zeebrugge into Lyon, and vice versa. The train will be able to haul a total weight of 1.800 ton in a flexible and versatile manner, combining trailers, swapbodies and (tank) containers ranging from 20ft up to 45ft.
CLdN’s chosen partners to operate the service are CFL Multimodal, the well-respected Luxemburg based rail operator, together with the Port of Zeebrugge, seeing its wide range of short-sea destinations on offer and the solid productivity.
The train will depart each Tuesday morning, Thursday morning & Saturday morning from Zeebrugge and depart each Wednesday morning, Friday morning and Saturday afternoon from Lyon, with a transit time of 22 hours in each direction.
It is expected that the train will be fully operational by the end of October 2016 (first departure from Zeebrugge on Tuesday morning 25/10/16 & first departure from Lyon on Friday morning 28/10/16).
CLdN ro-ro SA, the European Short Sea specialist, who has recently announced an ambitious and extensive fleet expansion programme with the order of two 8.000 l/m vessels and ten more 4.000 l/m to 8.000 l/m vessels to be added, offers in excess of 100 sailings per week between the ports of Dublin (Ireland), Hirtshals and Esbjerg (Denmark), Gothenburg (Sweden), Killingholme and London (United Kingdom), Leixões (Portugal), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Santander (Spain) and Zeebrugge (Belgium).