Grupo Alonso's Can Tunis intermodal terminal in Barcelona hosts Spain's first railway motorway

A new railway line operated by VIIA was inaugurated this week, linking the Setemar terminal located in Can Tunis (Barcelona), a company integrated into the Alonso Group, with the Bettembourg intermodal terminal in Luxembourg. This intermodal solution, unique in our country, loads P400 semi-trailers on a train, thus becoming the first railway motorway in Spain.

The inauguration of the Barcelona-Bettembourg railway motorway.

The first railway motorway that crosses Spanish territory is now a reality. VIIA, the SNFC group’s rail motorway operator, has entrusted Setemar’s Can Tunis Terminal with the start-up of the new Barcelona-Bettembourg (Luxembourg) rail line for the transport of unaccompanied semi-trailers.

The service, which is now fully operational, offers five round trips a week between Barcelona and Bettembourg covering 1,219 km entirely by rail. This service has an approximate duration of 22 hours of transit and is expected to increase its frequency to six weekly departures (round trip) from the month of April.

An example of intermodality unique in the Iberian Peninsula

The intermodal transport system used by the new Barcelona – Bettembourg railway motorway is designed to transport P400 semi-trailers and containers on a railway convoy without accompanying drivers or tractor heads. In this way, it is possible to combine the versatility of road transport with the efficiency and safety of the railway.

In addition to a high degree of punctuality and regularity, as departures and arrivals are scheduled in advance, the great advantage of using this railway motorway for the transport of goods lies in the environmental plane. The use of this new line saves approximately one ton of CO2 per trailer and journey compared to the same made by road. An amount that implies the emission of 23,070 tons less CO2 per year, in addition to avoiding the circulation of 22,090 trucks that will be transferred from the road to the railroad.

In this sense, the Setemar Can Tunis Terminal of Alonso Group is the first Spanish logistics terminal to host a rail motorway and continues to establish itself as the first operational logistics hub of the Mediterranean Corridor with a direct UIC gauge connection between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe.

Alonso Group’s Global Logistics Plan

The start-up of this new railway service is part of the objectives of the Global Logistics Plan developed by the Alonso Group. This project, which has been co-financed by the European Union through the Connecting Europe Mechanism, bases its strategy on connecting the different logistics platforms of the Alonso Group to the railway network, spread over the main neuralgic centres of freight traffic.

In this way, the aim is to achieve, in the medium to long term, an integral logistics system that allows us to offer a flexible, safe, economic and highly efficient service, under the premise of offering its users and stakeholders the greatest possible number of CO2-free kilometres. All this together with an environmentally responsible management of last mile logistics that bets on the use of vehicles with low emissions.