Growing cranes: the CTE-terminal at the port of Enns just got bigger

Austria’s Container Terminal Enns (or CTE) has seen energetic growth in recent years. Now it’s investing in the future to the tune of €9.6 million.

The city of Enns in Upper Austria marks the point where the river of the same name flows into the Danube. It is also home to the CTE, a joint venture between DB Cargo and Kaindl Invest GmbH that has been running since 2014. The volume of goods shipped in combined transport has grown strongly in the intervening years, prompting the need for an expansion. Now, that expansion is nearly complete.

Totalling €9.6 million in investment, the project succeeded in building a 45-tonne gantry crane, creating additional fixed storage spaces, expanding cranable tracks and galvanising digitalisation and automation. The CTE now covers 275,000 m2 and offers 27 km of tracks. There are ten tracks, each measuring 720 m, on which cranes can load and unload freight trains.

Twenty per cent of the investment came from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility. Additional funds were provided by a national grant from Austria’s Ministry of Transport, the BMVIT. Other financing was provided by the company itself and its shareholders.

The site’s capacity was well utilised shortly before the last step in the expansion, with the terminal handling a record 35,000 standard containers (TEUs) in July. A new container crane, the site’s fourth, became fully operational on 1 August. Late September saw the second full container module for storing loaded and unloaded containers come online. Alongside this, 100 weekly terminal slots were allocated to block train service to the southern port of Koper in Slovenia by DB’s subsidiary TFG Transfracht. Following the completion of the expansion in early October, the CTE plans to shatter the 400,000 TEU ceiling by year’s end. This would make it Austria’s largest tri-modal terminal site in terms of cargo volume, terminal surface area and track infrastructure.

The official dedication ceremony for the new crane and the expanded space held on 25 October was attended by political representatives of Austria and the state of Upper Austria, along with customers, partners and many more invited guests.

For more information visit www.dbcargo.com

11th November 2019