Tyrol businesses call for large freight terminal in Wörgl

Tyrol’s business community is calling for a large freight terminal in the Wörgl area as the Brenner Base Tunnel approaches completion, ORF reported. The Austrian Federal Railways, or ÖBB, say there is no need for such a facility because the key railway routes would intersect outside Tyrol.

The 55-kilometre Brenner Base Tunnel is expected to open in 2032. Hundreds of freight trains are then expected to travel through Tyrol every day, while experts estimate that as many as 400 trains could use the route.

Businesses argue that the existing Wörgl train terminal should be expanded into a major hub, similar in size to terminals in Wolfurt, Wels or Graz. Ulf Schmid, an Imst-based haulier and head of the transport and traffic division at the Tyrol Chamber of Commerce, said the railway stations needed to be in place if freight was to be shifted from road to rail.

Without rapid action, Tyrol would depend on freight terminals outside the region, Schmid said. He added that a logistics terminal would be financially viable and could attract additional businesses.

Matthias Danzl, plant manager at the Egger company in St. Johann and a board member of the Tyrolean Federation of Industries, said the expansion of the northern access route through Bavaria would take a long time. Loading facilities were also being built in Munich and elsewhere, he said, but Wörgl should become the hub for the Lower Inn Valley and southern Bavaria.

Germany’s four-track expansion would not happen soon, Danzl said. Tyrol therefore needed to act itself, with a terminal as the first step following the construction of the Brenner Base Tunnel.

ÖBB said it was expanding terminals, but only to serve the regional economy. Christoph Gasser-Maier, an ÖBB spokesman for Tyrol and Vorarlberg, said the terminal in Hall was being expanded and would cover demand when the tunnel opens. Infrastructure at the Wörgl rolling highway terminal was also being developed.

Wood is currently loaded at the Wörgl terminal. ÖBB plans to move that operation, which would free up space, Gasser-Maier said.

Tyrol’s transport minister, Rene Zumtobel of the Social Democratic Party, shares the ÖBB position. He said capacity at the Hall and Wörgl terminals would be expanded for regional businesses, while again criticising the lack of railway expansion in Bavaria.

“European transport policy must deliver in step with the tunnel construction, above all on the northern access route to the Brenner Base Tunnel in Bavaria,” Zumtobel said.