The Dunkirk spirit
Page 59
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by John Durant
DUNKIRK, a port with a strong international transport bias, is becoming more important for British users.
Cross-Channel traffic by lorries, trailers and containers increased dramatically by 42 per cent to 2.7m tonnes last year. One-third of this total was carried by rail; the rest was by road, up 15 per cent over 1983 to 48,500 units.
The port is expanding and claims to be developing a new Dunkirk spirit. In passenger transport it has joined the millionaires' club — Boulogne, Calais, Ostend and Zeebrugge — with-1,041,767 people carried in 1984.
The services available are: Sally — CGM freight-only vessel daily from Ramsgate: Sealink train and car ferries from Dover six times a day; Viking fine ferries from Ramsgate (four daily from April); Rheintainer Linie lift-on/off containership connection with Felixstowe at least once a week, in particular feeding the Dunkirk lines with UK traffic since the end of the SNCF container service in mid-1984.
Dunkirk has the largest rail marshalling yard for a French port. The Dunkirk/Valenciennes wide-gauge canal is linked to the European waterway system, which can take 1,350-tonners. The Eastern Harbour is served by motorway, and the Western by a dual-carriageway to the A25 Lille no-toll motorway.
The port's total traffic last year went up 10 per cent to 33.3m tonnes after three years of decreasing trade.
• Dunkirk is one of two French ports to hold a reception in London in recent months. The other one, Le Havre, gave its figure as 63,671 heavy goods vehicles to pass through in 1983. Le Havre, which has a reputation for high-value cargoes, has now joined an estimated 400 places around the world to have a freeport area — in French ''magasins francs' or free warehouses. The first such arrangement in France, it allows duty and taxes to be suspended at different points in the port area.