One of the topics discussed at the RailFreight Summit 2025, which took place in Gdańsk on 8 and 9 April, was technology in the rail freight industry. Which technologies are promising? Are great technological advances wishful thinking or the future of the sector? TMV Investor Joshua Gold took the opportunity to issue an important appeal to attendees.
“You may be wondering what I am doing here”, Gold said during his introduction to the crowd. The Rail Freight Summit does not exactly sound like a typical event to speak at for an investor. However, TMV is heavily involved in the transport (and rail) sector, and so he had some insights to share.
Gold had an important message to get across: Be serious about innovating. “Blockbuster was once the leading company in movie rentals. They should have been Netflix, but failed to look ahead.” Co-speaker Chad Van Derrick from Tideworks noted that Blockbuster once even had the chance to buy Netflix, but squandered that opportunity.
‘Look ahead into the future’
The anecdote is supposed to be a warning to rail freight companies. “Just because things seem to be going good now in terms of technology, it does not mean that you should not be looking ahead”, says Gold. “Talk to start-ups, because if you don’t know that they exist, you can’t even make use of their ideas.”
The key message: One of your competitors will innovate, so don’t fall behind. Even if rail freight is a relationship-centered business, it will need to go along with technological advancements.
Road versus rail
The same is true for competition across modalities. Rail freight can now count itself lucky that it can legitimately claim to be the greenest mode of transportation. However, David Krüger from the German Aerospace Center stresses that trucks will be electrified at some point, and so rail freight will lose its edge. “Rail freight is sort of seen as the saviour for transport and sustainability”, he says. But that will not last forever.
However, Krüger also sees that people in the sector are generally open to ideas. But when talking about money, certifications, regulations and implementation of changes, the sector is slow and conservative. There is a challenge to be overcome here, which could be needed to secure the future of the industry.