Port of Cherbourg

In the case of the Port of Cherbourg, collaboration with ro-ro ferry operator Brittany Ferries, has led to the impending launch of a ‘rolling highway’ linking the Normandy port to Bayonne-Mouguerre, near the border with Spain. The service has entailed the construction of two new, dedicated combined rail-road terminals. It will operate year-round and offer several weekly departures from Cherbourg and Bayonne-Mouguerre.
The service is expected to replace Brittany Ferries’ ro-ro shipping service for unaccompanied trailers between Bilbao, in northern Spain, and Poole, on the southern coast of England.

HAROPA Ports

Staying in Normandy, HAROPA Port, in charge of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris ports, is a prime mover in developing train-borne freight services with 100 weekly round-trips to 21 domestic and international destinations. At its request, combined road-rail freight transport operator Be Modal, a subsidiary of Lahaye Global Logistics, is mulling the launch of a service for maritime containers between Rennes, in Brittany and Le Havre, France’s biggest box port, possibly in 2026.

HAROPA Port’s rail freight traffic totalled almost 7 million tonnes last year, an increase of 3.4 per cent on the previous year. In 2025, the overall operational target is for road share to fall to 77 per cent, with rail and river share rising to 12 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.

Port of Marseille-Fos

Turning to the Port of Marseille-Fos, forging closer links with rail companies and logistics players is more of a challenge. Intermodal solutions group Modalis abandoned its plan to build a combined transport terminal at the hub. The project, named Tonkin Terminal Multimodal, had not progressed since its announcement in 2022, despite initial plans for a 2023 launch with potential customer Elengy, a specialist in liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Meanwhile, the Port of Marseille is working with SNCF Réseau on a project to develop combined transport. The project involves nearly 60 million euros of public investment and encompasses urban development and new terminals in Marseille and Miramas. In 2024, the modal share of rail for container traffic at the Fos terminals exceeded 17 percent, an 8 percent increase in train-borne box traffic.

Port of Sète

Still in southern France, west of Marseille, the Port of Sète will inaugurate a new rail freight terminal later this year, which has attracted an investment of 20 million euros. In November 2023, along with the Port of Calais, it became part of a sea-rail corridor established by rolling highway operator VIIA, a subsidiary of Rail Logistics Europe (SNCF Group), and Danish ro-ro shipping and logistics company DFDS, connecting Turkey with the UK.

Port of Dunkirk

Moving to northern France, the Port of Dunkirk is poised to launch construction on a combined transport terminal. This facility will enable trailers and swap bodies to be loaded onto rail wagons. The facility is scheduled to enter service early next year, and its management and operation have been put out to tender.

Intermodal transport services from the port’s container terminal already offer a range of connections with the main freight hubs in northern and southern France. Moreover, last year, CEVA Logistics began operations at its new finished vehicle logistics (FVL) hub at the Port of Dunkirk. The hub has a rail spur and connects to maritime import and export trade flows to and from the northern French maritime gateway.

Speaking at the webinar, Bastien Thirion, Lahaye’s director of rail freight, said that at the request of HAROPA Port, Be Modal has drawn up plans to establish a rail link between Rennes and the Port of Le Havre’s intermodal road-rail terminal. The route chosen would pass through the Greater Paris region, which offers more reliable rail infrastructure and better operating conditions than the more direct path via Normandy, he explained.

Depending on the interest of shippers

“We have opted for a schedule of two weekly round trips to not duplicate resources. In other words, to be able to manage this solution with a single train making round trips and a single wagon; thus allowing us to amortise our fixed costs as much as possible by having locomotives and wagons running practically all week.”

“Be Modal favours the provision of train sets of 20 80-foot intermodal wagons, specifically adapted to maritime containers. This type of equipment optimises the loading of 20-, 30- and 40-foot containers. A train set could hold up to 80 TEU,” Thirion noted. The company estimates that it could transport up to 15,000 boxes a year on the route (import and export), with trains also accommodating refrigerated containers.

Nevertheless, nothing is officially set yet. A survey will sound out interest among shippers in a Rennes-Le Havre combi service, and if this reveals that sufficient demand exists to justify its launch, the first trains could operate on the route in 2026, Thirion added.

French ports want multimodality with rail

Also speaking at the webinar was François-Xavier Marie, director of Development at HAROPA Port, the umbrella agency running the ports of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris, who underlined that the development of train-borne freight services was a key element in the grouping’s multi-modal transport strategy.

HAROPA Port’s rail freight services currently consist of 100 round trips by train weekly to 21 domestic and international destinations, including Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Fos-sur-Mer, Miramas, Avignon, Nova (Italy) and Chavornay (Switzerland), operated by Naviland Cargo, Ferrovergne, Delta Rail and T3M.

Marie pointed to the short-term objectives of HAROPA Port’s multimodal transport strategy. In 2023, the modal split for container traffic transported to and from its ports showed road having an 82 per cent share of the whole, followed by rail (10 per cent) and river (5 per cent). This year, the target is for road share to fall to 77 per cent, with rail and river share rising to 12 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively.

As for the modal split for bulk traffic transported to and from Le Havre in 2023, road’s share was 65 per cent, followed by rail (25 per cent) and river (10 per cent). This year, the objective is to reduce the road to 60 per cent, with rail and river increasing to 26 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.

As the Ministries pointed out, this facility will replace a former combined transport site in Orleans now dismantled. “The choice of a new site fell on the municipality of Aubrais, whose location makes it possible to supply both national and European freight corridors”, they added. According to French newspaper Ouest-France, the facility will initially be served by two 250-metre-long trains. In a second phase, however, the plan is to deploy 750-metre-long trains as well.

Boosting rail at Le Havre is an ongoing, long-term project

Initiatives to increase the modal share of rail freight between the port of Le Havre and the French hinterland started already in 2020. This is when the renovation of the Serqueux-Gisors rail section, between Le Havre and Paris, started. This project was then completed by March 2021, for a total of 246 million euros, ensuring SNCF with significantly more capacity in the form of 25 extra daily train slots available.

More recently, a new logistics warehouse was inaugurated at the port of Le Havre. Built by Prologis and delivered in mid-January, the facility is expected to increase “HAROPA Port’s attractiveness in logistics real estate”, as HAROPA Ports highlighted. It is equipped with five storage units (6,000 square metres each) as well as an external container storage area. Soon, according to HAROPA Ports, the Normandy Bridge Logistics Park at the port of Le Havre will have 125,000 additional square metres of storage.

Also read:

• SNCF launches Rail Route Connect for massive road-to-rail shift
• Schneider Electric launches Eurotunnel rail service with XPO
• Brittany Ferries confirms wagon order for ‘rail freight motorway’ service