Friday Brief: TGV M gets regulatory green light — four years late
Plus: Deutsche Bahn picks aviation executive as chairman of the board / Italo accuses DB of blocking German market entry
TGV M gets regulatory green light — four years late
FRANCE: Alstom’s next-generation TGV M has received its first formal authorisation from European regulators, clearing a key milestone after four years of delays — but SNCF has stopped committing to a launch date.
The approval covers the domestic French configuration only — 11 vehicles, 320 km/h, cleared for both high-speed and conventional lines. International variants for Italy, Franco-Belgian and Eurostar services each require separate processes.
SNCF’s revised expectation is seven to eight sets in operation by September, 13 by year-end — conditional on Alstom holding its production rate. No public date for commercial entry has been confirmed.
The Italian programme, targeting a September 2027 launch on Turin–Naples and Turin–Venice, runs on the same platform but depends on a separate certification process now under way at Bologna with no confirmed completion date.
Deutsche Bahn picks aviation executive as chairman of the board
GERMANY: Christoph Franz — former CEO of Swiss International Air Lines and Lufthansa — is set to succeed Werner Gatzer as Deutsche Bahn’s chairman of the board in 2027.
Franz has served on the DB supervisory board since March 2026. He stepped down from Stadler Rail’s board in May 2026, where he had sat since 2011 — a mandate that briefly overlapped with his DB appointment.
He takes over a board overseeing a freight division that must reach profitability by end-2026 under EU state aid conditions, and an infrastructure subsidiary whose track access charge model was ruled unlawful by the Court of Justice of the European Union in April.
Italo accuses DB of blocking German market entry
GERMANY: Italo, the Italian high-speed operator, has filed a formal complaint with Germany’s network regulator accusing Deutsche Bahn of a coordinated strategy to block its market entry — putting a EUR 1.2 billion rolling stock order with Siemens at risk if the dispute is not resolved by June.
Bundesnetzagentur held a hearing on 22 May but closed without a decision, giving parties a deadline for final submissions before an expected ruling in mid-June. DB holds around 93% of Germany’s long-distance passenger rail market.
The regulator has expanded the procedure beyond Italo’s specific complaint into a broader review of whether DB InfraGO’s access rules are lawful as written.
Germany’s high-speed market is open. The network is not.
Three operators have committed to entering Germany’s long-distance rail market by 2028. Whether any of them can depends on a structural gap in DB InfraGO’s network access rules that Bundesnetzagentur is now investigating.
By Dan Jensen
Italo, FlixTrain and Netinera have each committed capital — EUR 1.2bn, EUR 1.06bn and an unresolved tender respectively — all contingent on the same regulatory outcome. Long-term path agreements, discontinued in Germany since 2017, are the missing precondition for all three.
A Bundesnetzagentur ruling expected in mid-June will determine whether DB InfraGO must reintroduce framework contracts before the EU’s December 2030 deadline.
Plasser & Theurer posts EUR 731m revenue in turnaround year
Austrian track machinery maker Plasser & Theurer posted record revenue of EUR 731m in 2025 — up 56% year on year — as a restructuring launched in 2024 restored profitability after several years of net losses.
EBIT reached EUR 41.4m and order intake hit approximately EUR 1bn, leaving a backlog of more than EUR 1.6bn. The company attributes the recovery to improved delivery capability, which had been the primary drag on performance in prior years.
A new assembly facility at the Linz site, the largest single capital investment in the company’s history at over EUR 60m, is due to open this year and will support hybrid propulsion production.
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