Wednesday Brief: Latvia orders cheaper Rail Baltica
Plus: Rhine at record low: DB Cargo lines up 900 extra wagons / ČD Cargo runs its first train into Denmark
Latvia orders cheaper Rail Baltica
LATVIA: The government will set a ceiling on the state’s spending and then redesign the first phase to fit. An independent assessment found the railway as specified will cost far more than planned and cannot be completed on EU funding alone. Ministries have until 15 September to propose the ceiling and the cuts to technical requirements.
The first-phase scope is unchanged: main line from the Lithuanian to the Estonian border, the airport station and the southern part of Riga Central. The Riga loop moves outside phase one.
A first cut on the 33 km Misa–border section, prepared with the contractors and Eiropas Dzelzceļa līnijas, would lower construction cost by 24.8%, or EUR 108m. RB Rail says it was not consulted on the scenarios.
Latvia puts a ceiling on Rail Baltica. Now the other two countries have a problem
For twelve years the Baltic states specified the railway first and went looking for the money afterwards. Latvia has now reversed the order. That is the most important thing to happen to Rail Baltica since the cost estimate quadrupled — and Latvia took the decision alone.
By 15 September the Finance Ministry must state an annual budget ceiling and the Transport Ministry must list first-phase cuts. Platform lengths, embankment heights, frost layers, noise barriers and the two Riga stations are all in scope; a worked example on 33 km south of Misa cuts construction cost by a quarter.
Estonia and Lithuania are already building to the shared specification, and RB Rail was not consulted on the scenarios. Consultation with the neighbours and the Commission on the minimum standard comes only after the national number is fixed.
CEF funds up to 85% of eligible cost; a lower ceiling changes scope, not price.
Rhine at record low: DB Cargo lines up 900 extra wagons
GERMANY: DB Cargo can mobilise around 900 freight wagons, 300 of them immediately, to carry chemicals and steel that can no longer move by river, after the Rhine at Cologne fell to its lowest level on record. The company is also preparing to bring wagons that have stood unused for years back into service, according to a paper its chief has given the transport ministry.
The Cologne gauge stood at 55 cm on 12 August, below the 2018 record of 69 cm, and DB InfraGO has appointed a low-water coordinator for north–south flows on the Rhine and Elbe.
The extra trains run on a network already constrained by Generalsanierung corridor closures. Financing of a permanent standby wagon fleet between low-water years is not settled.
ČD Cargo runs its first train into Denmark
CROSS-BORDER: ČD Cargo has hauled a train into Denmark on its own locomotive for the first time, bringing a block train of coke from Ostrava to the border station at Padborg. Hector Rail took the wagons on to Falköping in Sweden.
The run on 13 August opens a contract of roughly 1,000 tonnes a month — one train — supplying foundries around Falköping. Padborg is the fixed handover point; the Swedish leg stays with Hector Rail.
The change is operational, not structural: no Danish base and no new licence footprint beyond the border station. Of ČD Cargo’s 53.4 million tonnes last year, 16.6 million moved abroad.
DB Cargo puts its UK business up for sale
FREIGHT: Deutsche Bahn’s freight arm has begun a structured sale of DB Cargo UK, one of Britain’s largest rail freight operators, as it narrows its focus to Central Europe. Legal and financial advisers have been appointed to run the process.
DB Cargo UK employs 2,155 people and runs just over 200 locomotives, including cross-Channel freight through the Channel Tunnel. Interpath is advising; talks with prospective bidders have already taken place, and the business trades as normal meanwhile.
The sale follows the 2025 divestment of parts of Transfesa in Spain and the June decision to cut more than 6,000 German jobs by 2030, all under the Commission’s 2024 state-aid conditions.
Luna Rail puts its night train pods in a real coach
INDUSTRY: Berlin start-up Luna Rail will show its Hotel Pod and Seat Pod cabin concepts in a converted passenger coach at InnoTrans in September — the first time the designs move beyond mock-ups.
The coach is being converted at the Luna Rail Lab as a development, testing and demonstration platform for the two cabin systems. InnoTrans runs from 22 to 25 September in Berlin.
Both formats are designed to let the same vehicle switch between daytime and overnight service, addressing the low utilisation and low passenger density that weigh on night train economics.
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