Conversion of intermodal transport terminal completed at Rostock Port

In addition a computerized slot administration system was set up to organize the handling in a time and energy saving manner. The handling terminal for rail, road and seaborne cargo was upgraded on an area of around 30,000 square metres. The whole intermodal transport terminal covers approx. 70,000 square metres. Two ramps and two railway tracks had already been demolished and rails extended and moved by June 2012. Apart from three additional tracks and the southern craneway girder the entire southern handling areas were newly built. A total of ten million Euro was invested for this alone until the end of 2012. Construction of the northern craneway girder and the completion and assembly of the first gantry crane were finished in 2013. “The first crane was commissioned in December 2013. Now that the second crane has passed its acceptance tests in April 2014 the mobile handling technology by means of so- called reach stackers may be phased out, which will happen at the end of May after a transition period. The conversion has allowed us to double the handling capacity to more than 140,000 units per year”, states Ulrich Bauermeister, managing director of Rostock Port Development Company. After the end of the building work there are three additional tracks available for handling now. The five tracks will be served by two new gantry cranes able to drive curves, each weighing 500 tonnes and with a height of 35 metres and a spread of 76.5 metres. The overall investment for the project amounted to Euro 17million. The conversion of the intermodal transport terminal at the port of Rostock received 70 % subsidies from the Federal Railway Authority, supplemented by another Euro 3.3million of subsidies from the European Commission under the Motorways of the Sea project “Green Bridge on Nordic Corridor” (Trans-European Networks). The remaining costs were covered by the Port Development Company.