Aarsleff Rail leases a large plot of land at Port of Aalborg to serve rail projects in northern Jutland

The region of North Jutland will be one of Aarsleff Rail’s high priorities in the months and years to come. The rail contractor, with its staff of around 580 nationwide, has won a number of projects in and around Aalborg. These include the forthcoming renovation of the section of the line between Hobro and Aalborg and construction of the airport line from Aalborg Airport to Lindholm.

Due to the new projects, Aarsleff Rail now needs greater capacity for intermediate storage and materials processing. Consequently, the company has signed an agreement with Port of Aalborg to lease 11,000 square metres of land at the East Port in Aalborg East.

‘We already have an excellent relationship with Port of Aalborg and we’re extremely pleased with the new agreement. The decisive factor was the favourable logistical potential of the location. It ensures a sound business case for our North Jutland projects, partly because the quayside location considerably reduces our need for no-load operation,’ explains Bo Clausen, Sectional Manager at Aarsleff Rail, and he adds:

‘The area will mainly be used for import and storage of track ballast. We’ll also be building storage depots on the land and using it for sorting and, not least, for treating waste materials left over from the renovation project so that they can be reused, for example, as base course gravel for other construction projects. We’ve partnered with haulier Eigil Jensen for the latter.’

Port of Aalborg welcomes the agreement. According to Commercial Manager Michael Rosenkilde Lind, it is a good example of the increase in demand for quayside land noted by the port in recent years.

‘We’re delighted and proud that Aarsleff Rail chose us as its partner for its current North Jutland projects. The land they’re renting belongs to the multiterminal we established in 2017 to meet the increasing demand for hard surfaced areas at quayside. Demand has continued to grow since then, and we’re pleased to able to meet it and provide our customers with the physical conditions and logistics they need, in a location close to both the harbour and the railway,’ says Michael Rosenkilde Lind.

New weighbridge at the multi-terminal

Aarsleff Rail has also entered into an agreement with inspection provider Dan Eye to construct a new weighbridge on the leased premises, to minimise transport when cargo needs to be weighed.

‘It’s extremely important that we have quick and immediate access when we need to weigh consignments, because large projects such as these involve a great many trips to the scales. So, we’ve agreed on a really good solution with Dan Eye: they’ll handle all of our weighing,’ says Bo Clausen.

The weighbridge, which can weigh goods up to 80 tonnes, will be a permanent addition to the port’s multiterminal. This means that when Aarsleff Rail leaves the premises, Dan Eye will take over the weighbridge and continue to offer port users the opportunity to have incoming and outgoing cargo weighed by an impartial party.

‘Current trends at port multiterminals make it interesting for us to be closer at hand, in order to provide existing and potential customers with even better service. This enables us to offer an even more versatile weighing solution: we’re close to the cargo and customers can use the weighbridge at any time of the day or night,’ says Jørgen Severinsen, owner of Dan Eye, and he adds:

‘The excellent collaboration between Port of Aalborg and Dan Eye offers both parties unique potential for attracting more operators in the future. Bulk carriers arriving at the port can use the services of the impartial party who can provide a total package, covering inspection, sampling and analysis. So, buyer and seller can leave this crucial element of a transaction to an impartial party and then close the deal according to the purchase contract.’

Dan Eye has a branch at Aalborg’s East Port and this weighbridge will be its second in the port area.