{"id":438862,"date":"2026-05-26T17:46:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=71324"},"modified":"2026-05-26T17:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:46:42","slug":"medway-stages-construction-of-the-largest-iberian-rail-terminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=438862","title":{"rendered":"Medway stages construction of the largest Iberian rail terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 Famalic\u00e3o in northern Portugal. In total, the development of the facility will last a decade characterised by challenges and uncertainties.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>\u201cThe MSC group decided to stage the project\u201d, Medway\u2019s chairman, Carlos Vasconcelos. shared with RailFreight.com. \u201cWe expect to start the construction later this year\u201d, 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).<\/p>\n

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 Leix\u00f5es and replace many truck trips with trains.<\/p>\n

Seven years of challenges<\/h2>\n

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 Famalic\u00e3o\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, to 63 million euros.<\/p>\n

Using poison for good<\/h2>\n

The dimension of the project required an environmental impact assessment, which revealed \u201cextraordinarily high concentration levels of arsenic\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

What could have become problematic turned into an asset for Medway. \u201cThe arsenic detected is absolutely natural, from the soil geological formation\u201d, details the operator\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,20297,306,471,307,47],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-438862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intermodal","category-lousado","category-medway","category-news","category-portugal","category-rail-news","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438863,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438862\/revisions\/438863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}