Norfolkline

Norfolkline was a European ferry operator and logistics company owned by Maersk. It provided freight ferry services on the English Channel, Irish Sea, and the North Sea; and passenger ferry services on the English Channel and Irish Sea; and logistics services across Europe. Norfolkline employed more than 2,200 employees in 13 countries across Europe, operating out of 35 different locations.

Norfolkline operated 18 vessels and over 550 refrigerated trailers (including 200 with dual compartment units), 1,750 dry-cargo trailers, and 1,150 swap-body trailers for intermodal freight transport. In 2006 more than 1.5 million passengers used Norfolkline's ferry services across the English Channel between Dover and Dunkirk and on the Irish Sea (between Liverpool and Belfast & Liverpool and Dublin) and over 1.2 million freight movements were completed.

In July 2010, DFDS acquired Norfolkline; The Norfolkline routes and vessels were integrated into DFDS Seaways.

Activities started in 1961 when Dutch entrepreneur Mr. L. Remeeus founded Norfolk Lijn N.V. He operated two coasters on a regular cargo service between Great Yarmouth and Scheveningen. The first appearance of the company in the ferry business was made possible when the roll-on/roll-off vessel Duke of Holland was acquired in 1969. Mr. Remeeus sold Norfolk Lijn N.V. to Unilever in 1973 and the company was renamed Norfolk Line in 1974.

The Company operated out of Great Yarmouth with "Duke of Holland and Duke of Norfolk", operations from Great Yarmouth commenced in 1969 and were finished by 1992, when nearby Felixstowe poached the business with Norfolkline in an aim to enhance the size of its fleet, which at the time Felixstowe could accommodate but Great Yarmouth couldn't.

The operations at Great Yarmouth were located at Atlas Terminal in the area of town known as South Denes. Norfolkline's UK head office was located at Atlas House (now demolished) whilst the operator had the entire Atlas Terminal quayside, a holding yard on the other side of the road as well as other facilities around the town. It is widely rumoured, that the town's outer harbour, which was first proposed around the 1960s/1970s was the main reason for the operator pulling the plug.^{[citation needed]}

Maersk wanted to hold an ownership in the new harbour and pay partly towards it, whilst also funding improvements to major road networks to the town including the A47 and A12 as well as partly funding a new river crossing. When the town and port authority rejected this proposal as well as the issue of capacity sizing which was soon outgrowing the town's river harbour and without the outer harbour it would have been falling behind, later Norfolkline moved to Felixstowe in 1992.

The Maersk Company Ltd, subsidiary of A.P. Møller acquired Norfolk Line in 1985.