Remote-controlled rail handling at Container Terminal Altenwerder
posted on 24th Aug 2026 16:19
The first remote-controlled rail gantry cranes have successfully gone into operation at Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG’s (HHLA) Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA). For the Port of Hamburg, the largest rail port in Europe, this is a major milestone in further boosting the efficiency of its rail handling.
A new rail gantry crane, manufactured by Künz, was delivered last year and installed at CTA and has been fully designed for remote-controlled operation. An existing rail gantry crane was also retrofitted as part of the upgrade: it thus can be operated both manually from the cabin as well as remotely. The remote-control technology has been gradually put into operation since the beginning of the year. Alongside the new remote-controlled container gantry cranes at CTA, the remote control of the rail gantry cranes marks another important step in the terminal’s ongoing development.
Parallel to commissioning, the rail gantry crane operators and technicians have received instructions and training in working with the new equipment. In future, rail gantry crane operators will control the equipment from ergonomically designed office workstations in the terminal building, thus actively contributing to the evolution of job profiles in the port.
With a track width of over 41 m, the new rail gantry crane now spans nine railway tracks at CTA. The total working width of the crane is in fact around 90 m as it not only spans the railway tracks but can also reach the preliminary queuing areas on the water and land sides.
Jens Hansen, Member of the HHLA Executive Board: "We are pleased with the successful commissioning of the remote-controlled rail gantry cranes. They will make a significant contribution towards boosting efficiency and productivity in rail processing. We are thus strengthening the clear competitive advantage of the Port of Hamburg as the leading rail port in Europe. We will consistently continue to build on this. For this purpose, we will consider optimisations such as remote operation for future projects”.
The Port of Hamburg is Europe’s largest rail port. Around half of all hinterland containers either arrive at or leave the port by rail, as an environmentally friendly mode of transport. In 2025, around 2.6 million standard containers (TEU) were transported by rail through the Port of Hamburg, the majority of them via HHLA’s container terminals. All three HHLA container terminals in Hamburg have their own container rail terminal with tracks accommodating block trains. The high proportion of rail in the modal split underscores the central importance of rail for sustainable goods transport in and around Hamburg.
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