How new is new? The extensive (mainly) timber yard at Lövholmen Intermodal Terminal is referred to as “the new” but just turned one year old. The terminal, in the heart of the northern Swedish town of Piteå, may be closer to the Finnish border than it is to Stockholm, but it is at the heart of an industry synonymous with Sweden: timber production.
Lövholmen Intermodal Terminal is not the first rail served facility in Piteå. It may have been conceived as a timber terminal, but the owners, Stenvalls Trä, are energetically promoting it for mixed use. That said, the predominant industrial landscape in Piteå is felled lumber. The owners need not have any concerns if they have to fall back on their core product line. However, diversity is their ambition.
Shipping to worldwide markets
Rail is the game changer for Lövholmen Intermodal Terminal. The terminal, owned by forest product company Stenvalls Trä, was originally established to handle its own operations. Those outputs consist of sawn and planed timber from Stenvalls’ four sawmills in the region. The prepared goods are transported by truck to the Lövholmen terminal for containerisation.
From there, onward transport is by rail to the Port of Gothenburg for shipping to markets in Asia, the USA, and Southern Europe. Now, more industries in the Piteå region are expressing interest in the terminal’s facilities. The terminal’s owners are actively pursuing that potential.
Gothenburg in less than a day
Roger Bergman, Marketing Manager at Stenvalls Trä, is open to approaches. “We want to be an open terminal for the entire region’s industry, which we are very committed to,” he said. ‘We are in no way exclusive to Stenvalls Trä. We have the capacity, expertise, and willingness to handle larger and more diversified volumes. And we have already seen the beginning of that.”
When operations started, there was one departure per week in each direction to and from Gothenburg Port. The frequency quickly increased to two cycles, and the terminal wants to increase the frequency even further. The rail transport to the Port of Gothenburg takes 23 hours.
Potential and well networked
Stenvalls Trä say that Lövholmen Intermodal Terminal has 30,000 m² of open and covered space, with an additional 20,000 m² under construction. There are two rail tracks with a total of 1,800 meters available. That’s comfortable for a 750m freight train, the maximum European standard. There is plenty of traffic in Sweden, with several contracts changing hands, and new markets opening up.
Experienced operators APM Terminals handle containers. TFK Logistics and Hector Rail operate train services. “It’s a collaboration that has worked incredibly well from the start,” says Kim Johansson, CEO of TFK Logistics “Together, we have a total concept that is hard to beat.” Lövholmen Intermodal Terminal is part of Railport Scandinavia, which means it’s part of a network of nearly 30 inland terminals. All told, it’s doing quite a grown-up job for a one-year-old.