AusRAIL, Market Sectors

PoAL doubles its freight rail services

<span class="" id="parent-fieldname-description"> Local council-owned Ports of Auckland (PoAL) has doubled rail services between its main port at Freemans and Judges Bays and its Wiri Intermodal Freight Hub in South Auckland. </span> <p>Wiri Intermodal Freight Hub, opened in 2010, is about 20km south-south-east of the main port and it is operated by CONLINXX, a subsidiary of PoAL.</p><p>KiwiRail, the state-owned infrastructure and freight services provider, ran four services of 23 wagons.</p><p>However, that has increased over time to eight services and, as of yesterday, there were sixteen services a week.</p><p>A statement from the port indicated that it wants to reduce the number of trucks entering its facilities which are centrally located in the city of Auckland – and open up space for growth.</p><p>“Containers moved by rail were up by 64% in 2013/14, but it is still a small percentage of the total containers coming through the port.</p><p>“We’d like to see this number grow over the coming years,” said PoAL general manager Craig Sain.</p><p>“There is ample capacity on the line to the Port to increase services further and we will continue to work with KiwiRail to get the most out of the line,” Mr Sain said.</p><p>The port handled 968,741 teu of containers in the financial year ending June 30, 2014.</p><p>Over the preceding four financial years (excluding 2013/14), PoAL handled container volumes in the range of 808,654 teu to 894,383 teu, with an average of 847,306 per financial year.</p><p>Accordingly, this year’s figure represents an increase of 14% on its average handling over the previous four years.</p><p>The volumes handled by rail stood at 69,585 teu, which is 7.18% of this year’s total teu.</p><p>However, the volume of teu on rail peaked at 95,417 teu in the 2011-ending financial year.</p><p>Volumes moved by rail in 2012 were adversely affected by an industrial dispute.</p><p>“The business lost is yet to be recovered,” the port said in its annual review.</p><p><em><strong>This story was originally published in Rail Express sister publication, Lloyd’s List Australia. </strong></em><a href="http://www.lloydslistdcn.com.au/archive/2014/09-september/03/local-poal-doubles-its-freight-rail-services"><em><strong>The original can be viewed here</strong></em></a><em><strong>.</strong></em></p>