Rheinmetall to take over Alstom’s locomotive plant in Kassel
GERMANY: Alstom and defence group Rheinmetall have agreed in principle that Rheinmetall will take over the Kassel plant where Alstom builds Traxx locomotives. No price or timetable has been given, and the terms are still being negotiated.
Both companies confirmed the agreement on 6 October. Rheinmetall said further details still had to be fixed in a contract.
The stated aim is that Alstom’s employees can move to jobs at Rheinmetall Landsysteme in Kassel. About 750 people work at the plant, according to hessenschau.
The handover would follow the path of Alstom’s Görlitz plant in Saxony, which passed to defence group KNDS.
Alstom has not said where it will build Traxx locomotives after a handover.
EU transport fund gets requests for almost EUR 3bn
EU: Applicants have asked for almost EUR 3bn from the EU’s transport infrastructure fund in its 2026 calls, against a budget of EUR 1.1bn. The agency running the calls received 246 applications by the 6 October deadline.
The requests amount to nearly 2.69 times the money available, said CINEA, which runs the transport calls of the Connecting Europe Facility for the European Commission.
No money has been awarded yet. Applicants will be told the outcome in March 2027, and grant agreements are expected by June 2027.
CINEA has not published how the applications divide between rail and other modes, or between countries.
Five-year rail plan names targets, leaves funding to annual budgets
GERMANY: The federal transport ministry has published a rolling five-year plan for the national rail network, with targets for new track and electrification up to 2030. The plan is not yet anchored in law, and funding is still approved one budget at a time.
Infraplan 2026 covers 2026–2030 and is to be revised every year.
The ministry said a law to anchor the plan is to be passed, and a rail infrastructure fund set in motion, within the current parliamentary term. Neither step has been taken.
Targets for corridor renovations from 2027 to 2030 have not been filled in, dpa reported.
Ingo Wortmann, president of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), said the plan did not describe a binding, fully funded path to implementation.
Stadler’s RS Zero moves from prototype to Copenhagen line
DENMARK: Regional operator Lokaltog has picked Stadler’s RS Zero, shown as a prototype in 2024, for four battery trains on the Nærum line north of Copenhagen. Only two of the three bids met the tender conditions, and Turkish manufacturer Bozankaya’s offer was not among them.
Lokaltog expects to sign the contract in January or February 2027. Delivery and entry into service are planned for the first half of 2031.
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