Aggregates specialist Carrières de Vignats has laid the foundation stone for a multimodal freight terminal that will allow the transport of construction feedstock from Western France to the Greater Paris region by rail and river.
Work began last September at the company’s site in Val d’Hazey in the département of Eure, in Normandy. The terminal has attracted investment totalling 18 million euros, with Carrières de Vignats benefiting from public aid totalling between 4 and 5 million euros. It is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2025 and will be equipped with a refurbished rail spur and river loading facilities.
Carrières de Vignats plans to transport 150,000 tonnes of aggregates by train (and 50,000 tonnes by truck). Annual traffic is expected to be 100-110 25-wagon trains per year or an average of two trains per week.]
Local State Prefect Simon Babre, said the project demonstrated that decarbonisation is possible “while continuing to produce concrete for our roads and homes. It’s the future of the economic model.”
Room for more shippers in the terminal
The aggregates extracted by Carrières de Vignats in Lower Normandy will be shipped 160 kilometres by train to the new terminal. From there, they will be unloaded and placed on a six-metre-high conveyor belt and transferred to barges that will travel up the river, generally to Paris, where most customers for the building materials are located.
“In June 2019, we had the crazy idea of transforming a former industrial site which had lain derelict for 35 years into a multimodal hub. We knew it was going to be a very complicated task. Fortunately, we’re quarrymen, and we’re in it for the long haul,” commented Carrières de Vignats CEO Geoffroy Colin, recalling the many administrative challenges that had to be overcome.
“We had the unfailing support of the State, the Region and the Seine-Eure conurbation,” he added.
Bernard Leroy, president of the Seine-Eure council, underlined that major climate challenges were driving decarbonisation initiatives. “The site of the new terminal is in line with the Zero Net Artificialisation objectives, as it does not take up any agricultural land. It is also strategically located in the Seine Valley, at the intersection of rail, road and the Seine.”
Carrière de Vignats will not be using all of the land on the 12.5-hectare site and there is scope to accommodate other shippers interested in using the terminal.
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