As part of its plans to service a new container terminal for the Port of Walvis Bay, the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport) has recently completed an upgrade of the railway infrastructure leading into the port – designed to handle heavier loads than the old rail line.
The newspaper, Namibian, reported that this cost the equivalent of R20 million, and the sections of railway tracks that had been rehabilitated included the main feeder line into the port as well as the line feeding the existing container terminal and the two staging lines in the container terminal – a total of 4.5 kilometres of track.
And, according to a World Cargo News report carried by Mike Poverello’s blog, the new container terminal is being constructed on 40 hectares of reclaimed land and will add 700 000 TEU of annual handling capacity to the existing 350 000 TEUs.
It also noted that bigger ships were already calling at Walvis Bay. One recent example was the 9 200-TEU containership, the CMA CGM Danube, setting a new record as the largest such vessel ever to call at the port.
