…is the first large goods terminal and, at the same time, the first railway terminal especially developed for intermodal and container transport in Bulgaria. The terminal is located near Sofia, more exactly 35 km away from Yana station and at the crossroads of 3 Pan-European Corridors: Corridor IV (Berlin–Tessaloniki), Corridor VII (Duras-Varna) and Corridor X (Salzburg–Istanbul). The Ecometal Engineering Ltd Company is the investor, owner and developer of the terminal and the shunting operator is Ecologistics Ltd, an Ecometal Engineering subsidiary. The terminal is expected to be ready for operation in July 2010. The container storage area has a surface of 20,000 square metres and the conventional cargo loading area stretches over 40,000 square metres. The deposit of steel products has 2,200 square metres and a 10,000 square metre area is available for loading and storing this category of products. Also, the daily capacity of the terminal is two block trains and single load or group wagons. “Yana terminal has a 35,000 TEU capacity per year with a Black Sea traffic of 2.1 million. By using our terminal, operators will have the opportunity to supply services and at the same time consolidate intermodal transport from and for external markets, such as Turkey, Iran, Caspian countries, Russia (south), Ukraine (south), Greece, Germany and Western Europe. Our services are also related by regional distribution and ferry services at the Black Sea”, Ivo Konstantinov, Trade, Sales and Acquisitions Manager within Ecologistics. The terminal develops a fully neutral policy towards its forwarders, while private, as well as state-owned operators benefit from non-discriminatory treatment with respect to prices which are applied only according to the quantity criterion. For the period 2010-2011, Sofia-Yana terminal aims at destinations such as Varna Port-Sofia and Bourgas Port–Sofia, Thessaloniki Port–Sofia, Arad/Timişoara–Sofia–Thessaloniki–Piraeus. The terminal is also considering destinations and markets such as Ljubljana–Sofia, Koper– Sofia, Constanţa Port –Bucharest–Sofia for service delivery. Additional services of the terminal consist in unloading classical goods, customs clearance, regional collecting and distribution, shunting, general shipments, stock and deposit management, general shipment of goods only at the customer’s expressed demand etc. “We provide added value transport services, regional distributions, we develop ferry services and connection services with the Black Sea, we own empty containers and give the operators the possibility to perform previous booking”, Konstantinov added. The terminal has 4 shunting locomotives, 4 depots, a mobile car landing platform, metal lifting equipments, fuel tanks, container cleaning equipments, technical work shops, as well as two industrial train and truck scales. Currently, there are seven railway intermodal transport operators that transit Bulgaria and operate on existing and under development lines: ICF Intercontainer-Interfrigo Basel, ICA, Express Interfracht, Gartner, Adria Combi, O Kombi, BDZ Intermodal–Kombinirani Prevozi. Traditional, maritime and continental terminals are important to Bulgaria’s goods market, especially for Sofia, the city which will take full advantage of this terminal. The Bulgarian intermodal transport market has a high potential for combined traffic and the fact that intermodal terminals in the region are scarce will determine an activity boost of Sofia-Yana terminal.
de Pamela Luică
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