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      Super High Speed Manufacturers >> Largest Companies European country Ref. Austria Belgium Biela Russia Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Russia Slovenia Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Other European North America Asia Australia Rest of the World         | 4rail.net - Reference - European Operators | ||
 | | Created for
4rail.net by John McKey.
Pictures by Hannu Luukannel, Hannu Peltola, Ilkka
Siissalo, Sanna Siissalo, Stanislav Voronin and
John McKey.  See also these pages!  Finnish Railroads Main Page, a great place to start browsing the Finnish section. ... |
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| Operators, Owners and organizations of Europe | |||
| Welcome
to the European operators page. This page will soon have information of
over 100 European organizations, now on 42. You can find more on many
of the
country pages linked on the left. | |||
Air France - Veolia A newcomer to the Europes international travel. The joint venture is planning to run super high speed train in the lucrative Paris - London route as well as several other smaller routes. BLS BLS (Berner Alpenbahn Gesellschaft Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon) is the second largest Swiss operator, and has been highly successfull attracting clients in the German speaking countries of open access. BLS has grown itself a powerful freight division and has numerous local and regional operations in Switzerland and Germany. Below an intermodal train crossing the Swiss German border on the Rhein am Weil. Oh yes, In Europe it might not be just the trailers or containers transported, often the whole truck is on train, including the driver! More on the 4rail.net Swiss section BLS Page...  CD - Czech Railways Czech Railways is the national operator of the Czech Republic. CD Cargo Started in 2007 CD Cargo is the largest freight operator in Czech Republic with its 900 locomotives. Cisalpino Cisalpino was the high speed coop organization between the SBB of Switzerland and Trenitalia from Italy. Reportedly because of the negliance going on for years on the maintenance by Trenitalia the availability of the Cisalpino Pendolino units was for years just a fraction of what it should had been and the SBB was finally forced to amke its decisions to split from the nonworking cooperation. This was done only after much of the passenger traffic volume was lost due to the lack of properly operating trains (causing severe delays in timetables). The SBB and the Trenitalia are at this point going independently their own ways, however it is likely that the SBB would be interested in finding another partner like SNCF, NTV or ÖBBs Railjet to keep the traffic density between the countries high enough in the open access situation.  Colas Rail Colas Rail is part of the Colas Group, a huge road construction company. It is starting its rail operations in 2010 in United Kingdom and the SNCF has bought a minority stake of its share, thus helping it grow its operations in the freight business faster. Czech Railways Czech Railways CD is the national operator for the Czech Republic in the Central Europe. Deutsche Bahn Deutsche Bahn is the largest operator and rolling stock owner in Europe (excluding the Russian RzD). With an annual turnover of 15 billion euros it operates both rail and truck traffic in all of the European countries. Most notable of its subsidiaries are the DB Schenker (an ex. Schenker Stinnes logistics plus several other companies) and the Euro Cargo Rail (ECR) with its operations in France and UK. 
Edelraudtee Edelraudtee is the other Estonian railinfrastructure owner and mainly passenger operator. Exclusively operating the old partly modernized Soviet DR1s, the Edelraudtee has managed to maintain much of the passenger traffic south and southeast of Tallinn which is located on the northern coastline of Estonia. As with Eesti Raudtee, future might bring some relief from a burden of maintaining the infrastructure.  Eesti Polevkivi Eesti Polevkivi operates a small section of railroad in the Estonias northern coast burning rock area. Vital to the national economy this sand like rock is burned on power mills producing much of the national electricity. Eesti Polevkivi has several switchers of type Tem2 to feed its power mills with the rock from the open mines.  Eesti Raudtee Eesti Raudtee, the Estonian Railways, is the largest infrastructure and mostly freight rolling stock owner and a freight operator. Eesti Raudtee has a network of some 800 kilometers of track, singela nd double, some electified to Russian style 300V overhead lines. The history of Eesti Raudtee is colorful, starting with the regained independence of Estonia, leading to sale to Ed Burkharts empire (you all remember the Wisconsin Central?) and finally in 2007 leading to Estonia state buying the railroad company back. Almost needless to say, the current arrangement is not in accordance to European Union directives. More on Eesti Raudtee and railroading in Estonia...  Elektriraudtee Elektriraudtee (Electric Railway) of Estonia operates a small number of Soviet legacy modernized ER2 units in the northern coastline near Tallinn. Many units currently have the wireless network for passengers, although the interior otherwise is very aschetic. The unit in picture also has airconditioning unit at the roof.  Euro Cargo Rail (ECR) Euro Cargo Rail (often known simply as ECR) is one of the largest subsidiaries of the Deutsche Bahn. ECR operates a large fleet of class 66 and class 67 locomotives mainly in France and UK. ECR has also ordered initially 45 Traxx electric locomotives for its very long freight routes. Noticeable is that there is also another DB subsidiary, DB Schenker, operating in these countries as well. For their operations you might see German originating DB and Railion branded locomotives and freight cars in France. Europorte 2 Europorte 2 is a division of Eurotunnel for freight operations using the Channel tunnel and adding to its traffic volumes. Eurostar Eurostar is a train owner and operator between London in UK and several destinations in the Continental Europe. The company operates two dozen double length TGV-llike trains called Eurostars. More on the company and train types on the Eurostar Page...  Eurotunnel Eurotunnel is best known as the operator for the English Channel tunnel. While the beginnings for operations were extremely difficult, the company now has evolved quickly towards profitability and expanding its business to train operations. The recent acquisition of Veolia Cargos French division is part of this plan. Other operations include Europorte 2 for freight operations around the Tunnel. Fyra Fyra is the high speed brand for the Benelux operators NS and SNCB. There will shortly be a theme page of Fyra on our high speed section. Go Rail Part of the Estonian Go Group, which has several transport related businesses. The railway group operates the to be lucrative Tallinn - St Petersburg - Moscow high quality night train. The train uses an RZD Tep70 locomotives to span the distances without electricity. Earlier the company operated under name EVR Express, and also had a connection with St Petersburg. We see this connection logical to reopen after the Visa difficulties with two countries are solved.  Horizon Paper Horizon Tselluloosi ja Paberi operates a feeder line to its formidable paper plant in Kehra Estonia. There are two TGM23b's (below) and one TGM3 in roster, although the rail traonsport is giving way to road transports. More and more wood is transported locally due to the heavy punishing customs on the export wood from Russia. Like in Finalnd, there is quite enough wood in Estonia to replace the Russian wood, but for the railroads this means less work in the short run.  Karelian Trains Ltd Oy Karelian Trains is a joint venture of the Finnish VR-Yhtyma and the mighty RzD of Russia. The company is registered in Finland and will initially operate 4 units of current VR-Yhtyma type Pendolinos between the city of Helsinki in Finland and St Petersburg in Russia. The operations will start in 2010 under Allegro brand. More on the Finnish Rolling Stock Classes Page...  Länderbahn AG German passenger operator owned by Arriva and Alex. Operations are is in Bavaria Germany and Czech Republic. MAV MAV is the Hungarian Railways currently being restructured to meet the modern demand for efficiency. Pääkaupunkiseudun Junakalusto Oy This is the first national network organization to own rolling stock in Finland besides the traditional operator VR-Yhtyma. The company is to own 32 Flirt EMUs for the traffic in Helsinki Metropolitan area. Junakalusto is owned by the YTV, Helsinki Metropolitan area council, responsible for organizing the public traffic outside city of Helsinki. Currently there are 2 Flirt trains and these will start operations with the VR-Yhtyma personnel in late 2009. More on the Junakalusto Rolling Stock Page...  Railjet Railjet is the high speed intercity passenger division of the ÖBB (Austrian State Railways). While the ÖBB does not have such money as the big players like SNCF of France or Deutsche bahn (to buy super high speed EMUs), the company is innovative. The top speed of 230 km/h (143 mph) can be achieved with a specially designed 'traditional' train, with one or more Siemens built powerful Taurus locomotives and several streamlined coaches with driving trailer(s). There are almost 80 railjets, and for the moment routes are expanding to many of the neighboring countries for Austria.  RCA - Rail Cargo Austria Austrian Railways subsidiary for freight operations "east of" Austria. Owns 30% of Express Rail in Slovakia. Renfe The Spanish Railways Renfe is responsible for most of the passenger and freight traffic on the Spanish railnetworks. Spain has two common gauges: the 1668 mm and normal gauge 1435. While the traditional 1668 mm gauge still survives most of the new lines are built to normal gauge, including an impressive super high speed network interconnecting to the French and Portugese networks. Renfe also has variable gauge high speed trains in use.  RhB - Rhätische Bahn A legendary Swiss narrow gauge operator in Western Switzerland. Rhätische Bahn is also one of the few railroad operations on the Unesco World Heritage list.  More on Rhätische Bahn...
RZD The RzD of Russia is by far the largest operator and owner in Europe. It has personnel of 1.3 million! The company operates almost 100'000 kilometers of track and the demand of new locomotives alone is over 1000 yearly! While we see RZD as a backward company in many respects, the modernization of the company and its rolling stock is on the way. Interesting happenings include Capsan Velaro style super high speed trains, connection of Moscow and Berlin overnight (currently in pretest phase) and the Karelian Trains joint venture using Pendolinos. More on the Russian Railways Page and the Russian Rolling Stock Page...  S-Bahn Berlin The operator for the local network of the Berlin area in Germany. SBB/CFF The SBB/CFF is the Traditional state owned operator and owner in Switzerland. Although Switzerland is not part of the European Union (despite the fact that it's surrounded by EU) the country has accepted most of the operating models of the Union and SBB/CFF is operating outside Switzerland as well. The company was very strong competitor in Germany in the first phase of the opening competition. More on the SBB/CFF Page... 
Sillamäe Sadam The small Sillamäe city harbor operator. The company seeems to have a couple of Tem2 and earlier had a 2Te166 monster as well.  SLB - Salzburger Lokalbahn The local passenger traffic operator north of Salzburg on the Austrias German border. SNCF The French National Railways SNCF is a huge French owner and full spectre operator within France and its neighboring countries. While Fret SNCF (the freight division) has been fighting a loosing battle on its home ground the passenger division is doing much better: the SNCF TGV has become an icon of successfull super high speed operations, in France and other European countries. 
SJ, Statens Järnvägar The Swedish National state owned operator SJ has been very reluctant to give away its national passenger monopoly. However, to supplement the services of the SJ, there are numerous local operators around larger economical areas. On the freight side the Green Cargo, SJ's freight division, is meanwhile competing with numerous open access European operators. Well, you must have heard of Rc locomotives (AEM7 for Amtrak in U.S.). That once was a prestige project of the Swedish industry for the then mighty SJ. It might also seem strange for you that a railroad company should paint its locomotives black and coaches and EMUs dull gray. Well, take a look below! More on the Swedish Main Page...  Spacecom Spacecom is a Russian private operator (yes they DO exist). The company mainly hauls oil unit trains from the Russian oil fields to harbors. Here a monster 2Te116 is seen visiting Estonia.  Thalys Thalys International is a joint venture of the SNCF (62%), SNCB (28%) and the German Deutsche Bahn (10%). The company provides commercial passenger services mainly between Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne. Thalys operates 26 TGV type PBKA and PBA trainsets known for their dark red livery.  Transoil Transoil operates unit oil trains from Russia to Estonian ports like Muuga. For frequent Transoil trains the norm is to have a Russian monster double diesel 2Te116 on the point.  Veolia Cargo Veolia Cargo operated for the first few years of open access (since 2007) freight in several European countries. In the fall of 2009 Veolia Cargo was sold, its operations in Germany (inclding the ex. Rail4chem), Holland and Italy to SNCF (French National Railways) and operations in France to Europorte 2 (Channel tunnel operators freight division). At the time of sales the company earned around 200 million ? / year. Veolia Cargo of Eurotunnel serves freight from U.K. to France and to Germany in 2010. Virgin Trains Virgin Trains is a Franchisee operating much of the long distance passenger traffic in southern side of the United Kingdom. While as successfull as the other Virgin comapnies, Virgin Trains is currently adding more length to its tilting Pendolino high speed trains and adding more train units. After the program is finished this fleet will very be very close to Chines "standard" numebr of 60 units missing this magic number by just 4 units. 
VR-Yhtyma VR-Yhtyma is sometimes referred as the Finnish State Railways. Although Finland is part of the European Union, VR-Yhtyma has a 100% market share in both passenger and freight operations of the country.  While the market share suspiciously high, this can be seen also as being a result of efficient and high quality services. Due to the conflict between the state of Finland and the previous management of the company VR-Yhtyma will be losing money for several years, leaving room for incoming competing operators. More on the Finnish section pages... ZS Cargo Slovakian rail freight operator. ÖBB, Austrian Railways Austrian state owned railways is a medium sized national operator with a dynamic and innovative subsidiary Railjet. Railjet is building an international network to the neighboring countries of Austria with its Taurus pulled high speed trainsets. Many more operators to follow later! |
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