A major new freight initiative by Brittany Ferries was launched today to strengthen connections between Ireland and Spain. The ro-ro/rail freight service will see significant steps to cut road traffic, reduce emissions, and support driver-free logistics.
The Breton-based company has inaugurated a 970 km rail freight service from Cherbourg in neighbouring Normandy to Bayonne near the French–Spanish border. This internodal service allows Irish logistics operators to send trailer-only freight by sea from Rosslare Europort to Cherbourg, where trailers transfer seamlessly onto a dedicated overnight train to Bayonne, without the need for an accompanying driver.
The unaccompanied service offers a cleaner, more efficient alternative to road haulage across western France. Trailers are loaded onboard Brittany Ferries vessels in Rosslare, Co. Wexford, and shipped to Cherbourg on the Cotentin peninsula. As Afloat captured above, the appropriately named freight-oriented ferry, Cotentin, was purpose-built for the French ferry firm, which also uses other vessels of the fleet on the Ireland-France connection.
Once in France, the trailers are transferred by tug to MODALOHR’s state-of-the-art double-ladle wagons, which allow for smooth and rapid loading onto rail. The pivoting wagons ensure trailers are safely stowed before heading south by train to Bayonne in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region in south-western France.
At the end of the rail leg in Bayonne, located in the Basque region of southwest France, trailers are collected and delivered onwards across southern France or in neighbouring Spain, or the process is reversed for goods travelling from Spain to Ireland.
HGV Ireland has more on this new logistic infrastructure linking Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula.
