Estonian national rail operator Operail has announced a new business strategy that involves full privatisation. The privatisation is a necessary step to find additional financial sources. According to the company, privatisation will also enable the expansion of operations into foreign markets. Operail has been struggling financially after the implementation of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. […]
Category: Business
Stadler to produce 130 electric freight locomotives for Spanish operators
Stadler will produce 130 electric freight locomotives for various Spanish operators. The company intends to supply the trains between 2024 and 2026. Currently, Spain operates between 400 and 500 freight locomotives. The company has signed contracts with nearly all of the country’s railway operators for the delivery of ‘Euro6000’ electric freight locomotives and aims to […]
Russia and China see record rail freight volumes in 2023
Russia and China have reached a new record rail freight volume between the two countries. The total freight volume going through Russia’s Far East border crossings grew by 26 per cent from 2022, amounting to nearly 44 million tonnes. This number includes traffic to and from Mongolia. The total freight volume among all transport modalities […]
Getlink eyes “significant growth potential” of cross-Channel rail
Getlink/Eurotunnel is seeking to unlock what it describes as the “significant growth potential” of cross-Channel rail freight. In the fourth quarter of last year, a total of 318 freight trains operated through the fixed Link, down 10 per cent on the same period in 2022. Figures for the whole year showed that the number of […]
Combined transport sector records five consecutive quarters of losses
Combined transport’s performance has been a tale of “a concurrent series of crises,” says industry association UIRR. The sector experienced losses for a fifth consecutive business quarter. Performance during Q4 2023 shrank by 11,1 per cent compared to the same period in 2022. At the same time, the business sentiment among professionals remained ‘slightly negative’, […]
Polish farmers to block all Ukrainian freight transport
Polish farmers will organise new blockades of Ukrainian freight. This time around, they will block all border crossings between Poland and Ukraine, seaports and rail hubs. The intensified blockades are supposed to start on 20 February. Polish farmers are protesting the relaxation of import and transit restrictions on Ukrainian goods by the EU. The lifting […]
Polish farmers to block all Ukrainian freight transport
Polish farmers will organise new blockades of Ukrainian freight. This time around, they will block all border crossings between Poland and Ukraine, seaports and rail hubs. The intensified blockades are supposed to start on 20 February. Polish farmers are protesting the relaxation of import and transit restrictions on Ukrainian goods by the EU. The lifting […]
EU may break up DB Cargo due to losses
The European Union may break up DB Cargo due to the rail operator’s large losses, which have reached nearly 500 million euros. Company sources reported to Reuters that the EU may consider the figures and subsequent government support to be distorting the market. The Deutsche Bahn subsidiary incurred losses that were twice as high as […]
Hupac’s 2023 performance indicates the struggles of European rail
Multiple challenges, some continuing from previous years and some appearing out of the blue, created a not-so-business-friendly environment for intermodal operator Hupac in 2023. The company saw its traffic and volumes declining across its whole network and has implemented strategic moves to tackle the harsh market conditions. In 2023, Hupac transported approximately 975,000 road consignments, […]
Recovery and stagnation: German rail survey reveals mixed results
The German rail sector fully recovered from the pandemic in 2022. According to an annual German market survey, German rail freight exceeded its pre-pandemic performance levels by 10 per cent. However, performance also stagnated in the second half of the year. According to an annual survey by the Bundesnetzagentur on the performance of the rail […]