Construction of stage one of the largest rail terminal in the Iberian Peninsula will begin by the end of 2026 and last for almost two years. MSC-owned operator Medway will invest 60 million euros in the initial phase of the freight facility, located in Vila Nova de Famalicão in northern Portugal. In total, the development of the facility will last a decade characterised by challenges and uncertainties.
“The MSC group decided to stage the project”, Medway’s chairman, Carlos Vasconcelos. shared with RailFreight.com. “We expect to start the construction later this year”, he added. The construction will be synchronised with the reformulation of the rail connection between the site and the main network led by Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP).
The terminal will be equipped with four 750-metre railway tracks and a total capacity of 11 thousand TEUs. The facility will support the storing of reefer containers, provide a designated space reserved for dangerous goods, and will also have warehousing and logistical services buildings. With the Lousado site, Medway intends to serve the Northern Portugal industries, the Port of Leixões and replace many truck trips with trains.
Seven years of challenges
The construction of the Lousado terminal was announced in November 2018. At that time, Medway said it would invest 25 million euros and the construction would begin in the first months of 2019. Two months later, when the protocol with Famalicão’s municipality and IP was signed, the operator increased the budget to 35 million euros with plans to open in March 2020, with six 750-metre railway lines and a total capacity of 10 thousand TEUs.
Nothing happened, however. COVID-19 spread and plans were delayed for more than a year. Then, in September 2021, Medway confirmed that the terminal would be constructed and ready by the end of 2022. In January 2022, a new deadline: the facility would be finished in one year. In the meantime, the investment almost doubled, to 63 million euros.
Using poison for good
The dimension of the project required an environmental impact assessment, which revealed “extraordinarily high concentration levels of arsenic” in the soil, as Vasconcelos detailed in 2024. The Portuguese environmental agency would have to study whether the arsenic was from organic reasons or from human origin.
What could have become problematic turned into an asset for Medway. “The arsenic detected is absolutely natural, from the soil geological formation”, details the operator’s chairman to RailFreight.com. It means this mineral is suitable for the construction of the facility by flattening the land, which even promotes the circular economy.