They said the facility provided tri-modal capability for the region and compared it to Germany’s showcase inland logistics hub Duisburg, further west.

It is part of the Port of Magdeburg’s Hanse Hafen, built at a cost of €34.5m and covering 40 hectares, open for industrial settlement by port oriented companies. The port stands upstream from Hamburg at the junction of the River Elbe, Elbe-Havel Canal and Mittelland Canal, all important waterway arteries linking north German seaports with parts of east and south Europe.

Stressing the importance of ‘more intelligent, efficient and safe’ intermodal infrastructure in future, German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said at the opening of the new hub that ‘Road, rail and waterway must be linked more strongly. In Magdeburg this integration has been exemplary’.

Hamburg’s big Buss Group is hoping that controversial plans to deepen the Elbe can go ahead so that Magdeburg can become its inland bridgehead. It is planning a 43,000m2, €8.5m logistics hub in Hamburg with first phase building to start this year.

Berlin is paying 80% of the cost of the Hanse Terminal, which can handle everything from containers to heavy project loads. It is expected that as many as 33,000 TEUs a year will be handled. It boasts a 50 ton portal crane able to handle either berthed inland ships or trucks and railcars on land. Hanse Hafen has 3.5 km of port rail track and 1.7 km of ring road linking it to the German motorway network.