The ceremonial launch of the East-West Gate multimodal terminal took place in the Hungarian city of Fényeslitke, 18 kilometers from Chop and the Ukrainian border, on 18 October.
Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó took part in the opening of the terminal, the CFTS portal reports.
According to Szijjártó, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have had a negative impact on the plans to use the terminal as a transshipment hub for goods being transported between Asia and the European Union.
He expressed the hope that the terminal will still play the role it was designed to play before the start of its construction after the war ends.
According to him, the terminal can now be used for the transportation of Ukrainian grain, among other things.
János Tálosi, Chief executive officer of East-West Intermodal Logistics Plc, said that the terminal is a place where rail tracks of the 1520 mm and 1435 mm gauges meet and that goods can be transshipped from railcars onto trucks and vice versa. Therefore, according to him, it should play an important role on logistics routes.
The terminal, which occupies 85 hectares of land, is described as the largest onshore intermodal terminal in Europe.
As the CFTS portal reported previously, the initial capacity of the terminal should be 300,000 TEU per year. With further development and modernization of the Hungarian railway network, this indicator should increase to 1 million TEU. The terminal has five rail tracks with a width of 1520 mm and five with a width of 1435 mm. Trains up to 740 meters long can be processed there. The latest digital technologies for managing production processes, including the digital twin technology, are implemented at the terminal.
The EWG also prepared for trans loading Ukrainian agricultural products, adapting to the war situation. From November 2022, it is expected to be capable of handling 800 tonnes of grain and 450 cubic metres of sunflower oil per hour, making it the largest rail hub for Ukrainian food exports. At the inauguration ceremony, the first train carrying Ukrainian agricultural goods, an EWG-organised consignment, rolled into the terminal. A total of 1,146 tons of wheat, millet and green peas shipped by Ugrain Trade LLC arrive in 44 twenty-foot containers, and after transshipment, they are transported to the Csepel Free Port.
