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The three Swiss logistics and freight companies Contargo AG, SBB Cargo AG and Hupac AG have submitted a joint funding application to the Swiss Federal Office of Transport for the Gateway Basel Nord project. A further milestone has thus been reached in realising the planned container terminal.

Project work for the first phase of creating the Basel Nord container terminal has now progressed to the stage where a consolidated operating concept and cost schedule have been drawn up. In November, therefore, Gateway Basel Nord AG submitted a funding application to the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) to finance the terminal infrastructure, With the company estimating costs of CHF 73 million for the road/rail terminal (bi-modal operation) on the site of the former Weil am Rhein marshalling yard.

The planning approval procedure is set to be launched in the first half of 2016. The extensive planning documents required for this project are currently being drawn up.

Capacity to be expanded in stages

The bi-modal terminal is scheduled to open in 2019. The new logistics hub in North-Western Switzerland will be open to all interested users – without discrimination – for the transshipment of containers and other intermodal freight receptacles. Gateway Basel Nord AG is keen to welcome other partners.

In a second phase, Swiss Rhine Ports intend to extend the terminal by adding a new dock basin for tri-modal transshipment (road/rail/water) and providing a link by water to the Kleinhüningen Rhine port. Domestic shipping will be efficiently integrated with the future dock basin 3.

An ideal location on the North-South corridor

The tri-modal Gateway Basel Nord is ideally located on international freight traffic routes and will bundle container shipments for Swiss import/export traffic. The large-scale terminal will be Switzerland’s first

high-performance, high-efficiency container transhipment facility for handling increasing freight traffic between Switzerland and seaports and eliminating capacity bottlenecks in the Kleinhüningen Rhine port. Swiss container shipments from trains and inland barges will be bundled at a single site and transferred from road to rail to be transported on into Switzerland,

thus providing a boost to sustainable, cost-effective container transport to supply Switzerland’s national economic needs.

Gateway Basel Nord AG
The three Swiss logistics and freight companies Contargo AG, SBB Cargo AG and Hupac AG established Gateway Basel Nord AG in June 2015. Based in Basel, the company is planning and implementing the road/rail/water transhipment terminal for import/export traffic at Basel Nord.