THE Baltic Hub Container Terminal in Poland's Port of Gdansk expects its capacity to grow to eight million TEU per year by the mid-2030s, and it is aiming to have a 36-39 per cent share going by rail, reports London's Railway Gazette International.

This was the forecast set out by Bartlomiej Felczynski, business development manager for the Baltic Hub, on a guided tour to the terminal as part of the RailFreight Summit in Gdansk.

With three active terminals already in use in the Baltic Hub, T5 is currently under construction, and the reception of the necessary permits for operation of terminal area T4 is now getting under way.

The intermodal facility was renamed from DCT Gdansk in 2022 as part of efforts to show that its significance is increasing from a local to a regional hub. The Baltic Hub aims to become one of the largest such sites in Europe by the mid-2030s.

It handled a total of 2.2 million TEU last year, including 8,400 freight trains. It aims to handle 11,000 trains next year.

Said Mr Felczynski: "Rail's modal share in the terminal is 33 per cent currently, with the largest operators serving the port complex being Metrans and OBB Rail Cargo Group."

Most of the maritime traffic arriving in the Gdansk terminal is coming from China and southeast Asian countries. Seventy per cent of the terminal's traffic is directed to the domestic market, while Ukraine, the Czech Republic and other central and eastern European countries are the main destinations.

Asked why there was growth in rail traffic, he said the key drive was the growth of the Polish market. He also cited a decline of German rail infrastructure quality, which is leading customers in central and eastern European countries to go through Poland instead.

"We also don't have congestion, nor infrastructure problems or personnel shortage like other competiting terminals," he said.