At the south-east Irish port of Waterford, the main terminal at Belview is where two trains were at the facility that led to maximised efficiency as an engine swap-over took place, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The swap-over was carried out last month at the Belview Port terminal located in Co. Kilkenny, which is downriver of Waterford City. According to the Port, there was a rails train to load out railtrack and then shortly afterwards, the liner service from Ballina, Co. Mayo had arrived with containers to be exported to mainland Europe on the Samskip/DFD Logistics service.

The engine for the first train laden with railtrack, swapped over and connected up with the container train to pull it out. Such an operation is unique, as the Port of Waterford is the only port in Ireland which can conduct this logistical procedure at the rail connected terminal.

With Belview Port having this capability, the terminal is at the forefront of the rail freight sector since the 1990’s, operating up to 30 trains per week using 4 rail sidings. Now with renewed investment in the rail sector, the terminal which also last month had dredging carried out by Freeway (update due) has proven its capability to meet the needs of the sector intregrated with maritime transport.

The train which transported the containers were offloaded and then loaded onto the 803 TEU lo-lo capacity containership, Samskip Express operated by Samskip on behalf of the joint service with DFDS Logistics. The short-sea feeder containership is part of the overall Belfast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork liner services to mainland Europe.

Samskip Express is run on biofuel and was today tracked by Afloat to the Dutch port of Rotterdam, noting in 2021, Amsterdam was added to service operations linking Ireland.