Significance of Rail Baltica for international transport a key issue of Intermodal in Poland 2022 conference
Lithuania is preparing for a major investment in the Kaunas railway junction. It is one of the most important projects within the construction of the Rail Baltica international mainline. Due to the already completed investments, the Lithuanian city has gained new intermodal connections with Poland and Germany in recent weeks. The participants of the Intermodal in Poland 2022 conference will discuss the opportunities that these investments create for combined transport.
Lithuania’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has presented for public consultation a modernization project of the Kaunas railway junction. It is one of the largest investments within the Rail Baltica international project, which aims to build a mainline with a gauge of 1435 millimetres and the parameters of the TEN-T network connecting Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with a ferry connection to Finland. The North-South and East-West routes will intersect in Kaunas, covering the lines to Poland and the Port of Klaipeda.
“The significance of the railway junction for the entire region as a logistics centre is particularly high, therefore its development is a strategic phase that we are trying to implement as soon as possible. It is important that the solutions, chosen for the Kaunas railway junction, ensure smooth traffic and support for passenger and freight trains from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland. At the Kaunas Intermodal Terminal (KIT), railway loads are currently transhipped from broad-gauge wagons to wagons with a European gauge – this is how loads from Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Scandinavia are moved, and the return transit from Western and Central Europe to these countries is carried out in the same way,” explains Arenijus Jackus, director for Rail Baltica at LTG Infra.
New opportunities
The already completed investments are the construction of the Rail Baltica section from the Polish-Lithuanian border to Kaunas and the new KIT intermodal terminal have made Lithuania’s second-largest city an international logistics hub at the junction of European and former Soviet Union railway systems. In recent weeks, the intermodal terminal in Kaunas has gained regular connections with Duisburg (via Warsaw and Poznań), the DCT intermodal terminal in Gdańsk and Małaszewicze. Rail carriers from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also want to launch the Amber Train service, which will connect these countries with Finland, Poland and Western Europe.
The implementation of the Rail Baltica project will fundamentally change the logistics sector in Lithuania. It will enable, among other things, the shift of a large number of loads between the Baltic countries and Poland, which is currently transported by trucks, to rail, which is the execution of the transport goals of the European Green Deal policy. The participants of the Intermodal in Poland 2022 conference, which will be held on 27-29 September in Janów Podlaski, Terespol and Małaszewicze, will discuss the prospects for the development of intermodal transport, which is developing thanks to Rail Baltica. Within the conference, there will be a debate on ‘Rail Baltica and the opportunities for the development of the logistics industry in Poland, Lithuania and Northern Europe”. IntermodalNews invites all the parties concerned to participate in this discussion as well as the entire conference!
Information about the Intermodal in Poland 2022 conference and registration of participants is available on the website: http://intermodalinpoland.eu
More details you can also obtain via the e-mail: biuro@intermodalinpoland.eu