Welcome to Berlin. Rail freight has now fallen four years in a row.
InnoTrans opens in Berlin on 22 September with more than 3,100 exhibitors and 180 world premieres, eight days after Eurostat reported that rail freight in the EU fell for a fourth consecutive year.
Rail carried 368.2 billion tonne-kilometres of freight in the EU in 2025, 1.8% less than the year before. Road haulage grew the same year.
The EU asks two things of rail freight at once. Operators must stand on their own under state aid rules, and the sector is meant to carry 50% more freight by 2030 under a target that binds no member state and that the EU’s own auditors called unrealistic.
Told to break even, operators cut the services that lose money, and the capacity to carry more goes with them. The capacity rules, the 740-metre requirement and the freight target all fall due in the same month of 2030.
Largest rail contract signed after twenty-month fight
POLAND: Infrastructure manager PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe has signed a roughly EUR 940m contract to rebuild almost 95 km of the Rail Baltica line between Białystok and Ełk, with completion due in late 2029. The contractor was chosen three times after two awards were overturned.
The line will be double-track along its full length and get computer-based interlocking, with eight stations and 10 stops covered by the works and 32 grade-separated crossings replacing level crossings. Passenger trains will be able to run at 200 km/h on most of the section once all works are finished and ETCS has been commissioned. The infrastructure manager gives no date for ETCS.
The tender was launched in January 2025, and a ruling by the Warsaw Regional Court on 4 September cleared the way for signature. Chief executive Piotr Wyborski told the press conference that it is the largest single contract in the company’s history, according to news agency PAP.
It was the first tender in which the Polish infrastructure manager applied rules derived from a Court of Justice ruling, according to industry reports: only companies from the EU, the European Economic Area and countries covered by the WTO procurement agreement could bid.
PKP Cargo to share state claim with creditors
POLAND: PKP Cargo filed amended arrangement proposals with the Warsaw district court on 15 September. Three of six creditor groups are offered a share of any payout from the state-controlled operator’s PLN 1.52bn damages claim against the state. A separate court suspended that case again the same day.
The company will pass on 50% of any money it finally receives from the state treasury, net of public-law charges and the direct costs of the case, shared pro rata among tax creditors, banks and larger trade creditors, and state-controlled railway companies. No creditor can recover more than its original claim, and the mechanism runs until 31 December 2036.
The claim covers a 2022 decision by then prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki that required PKP Cargo to carry imported coal. State-owned PKP SA holds 33.01% of the operator’s capital, so the state sits on both sides of the case.
Other parties to the proceedings have until 15 October to submit their own proposals, and the creditors’ council is to give its opinion by the same date.
Knorr-Bremse wins Europe’s first commercial DAC contract
AUSTRIA: Knorr-Bremse has won a contract to fit a 23-wagon ÖBB Rail Cargo Group train with digital automatic couplers (DAC). The German supplier calls it Europe’s first commercial DAC equipment contract. The couplers are due to enter daily freight service from 2028 in an EU-funded trial.
The train is one of seven pilot trains in the Pioneer Digital Automatic Coupling project, which covers about 500 couplers on 250 freight wagons and 15 locomotives.
Knorr-Bremse announced the contract from Munich on 17 September without disclosing the value or the date of signing. Rail Cargo Group has not published a statement of its own.
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