Friday Brief: Ten EU states demand Commission action on rail delivery times
Plus: Go-Ahead confirms it is leaving Norway / Adif takes legal action against Siemens after Barcelona blackout
Ten EU states demand Commission action on rail delivery times
EU: Austria, backed by nine other EU member states, has asked the European Commission to draft a strategy for the European railway industry, placing the issue on the agenda of the Transport Council meeting in Luxembourg on 8 June.
The initiative arrives ahead of the Commission’s mandatory three-year FSR review, due 13 July, with potential implications for how the regulation applies to rail procurement.
Ten national governments backing a coordinated industry strategy signals delivery bottlenecks have moved from operator complaints to Council-level agenda items.
Germany’s co-signature stands out given Deutsche Bahn’s own fleet pressures, though the proposal stops short of naming specific operators or projects.
Go-Ahead confirms it is leaving Norway
NORWAY: Go-Ahead’s rail division has confirmed it will not continue in Norway after 2027, ending the country’s first experiment with a foreign passenger operator.
Go-Ahead has run the Sørlandsbanen, Arendalsbanen and Jærbanen lines since December 2019 — the first foreign passenger contract in Norway. State operator Vy takes over from 2028.
The handover follows a direct award decided in 2024, without a tender. ESA is examining whether that award complies with fourth railway package exemption rules.
Adif takes legal action against Siemens after Barcelona blackout
SPAIN: Adif and Catalonia’s Rodalies operator have both announced legal action against Siemens after two failures in the company’s traffic control system on 9 June brought the whole of Catalonia’s rail network to a standstill. It was the fourth such outage in recent months.
Both 9 June failures occurred during a Siemens maintenance operation on the centralised traffic control system at Barcelona’s Estació de França.
The intervention was part of a software upgrade tied to the operational merger of Renfe and Adif’s control centres.
Europes rail capacity rules take effect
EU: A regulation overhauling how Europe allocates rail capacity entered into force on 11 June, starting a multi-year shift from national, annual planning to coordinated cross-border scheduling.
The Capacity Management Regulation creates two new bodies, ENIM and ERP, neither of which exists yet.
The first timetable under the new system is due in December 2030.
Siemens turns the Vectron into a software-updatable platform
INDUSTRY: Siemens Mobility has launched the Vectron X, an unchanged Vectron locomotive fitted with a digital layer of apps, open interfaces and a cab touchscreen that lets the platform evolve after delivery.
Siemens unveiled the Vectron X on 10 June at its new Rail Service Center in Munich-Allach. All Vectron deliveries from that date carry the new specification.
The change applies to a platform with nearly 3,000 units sold across Europe.
That’s The Rail Agenda for today. If you found this newsletter useful and relevant, please forward it to someone you know.