Europe’s Freight Rail Nears Breaking Point, Industry Leaders Warn

Freight rail in Europe is approaching a breaking point, and the warnings are now coming from inside the sector itself. A sharp call to action from Switzerland’s VAP, supported by and Ermewa Managing Director Peter Reinshagen, shows a growing consensus: without rapid, coordinated intervention, more goods will continue shifting from rail back to road.

According to the Swiss shippers’ association VAP, the importance of rail freight "is enormous", yet the system is treated as if its stability were automatic. In a post responding to columnist Jürg Meier’s analysis in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the association warns that freight rail is under "great pressure on multiple fronts", with falling volumes, worsening infrastructure and policy missteps accelerating a significant reverse shift toward road transport. This is a concern also taken up by Ermewa Managing Director Peter Reinshagen, who warns that without swift action the shift of freight back to the road will continue.

VAP argues that many of the problems are self-created. Domestic price increases have become disproportionate, regulatory tightening after the Gotthard Base Tunnel accident has been excessive and poorly justified, and Germany’s rail infrastructure is described as "absolutely desolate". These issues, the association says, are steadily undermining rail freight’s competitiveness and creating an "untenable situation" that the sector cannot resolve alone. Switzerland’s revised Goods Transport Act is a first attempt to strengthen national freight rail, yet VAP stresses that further corrective steps must follow quickly, otherwise both industry and the wider population will feel the consequences "very soon".

In his commentary, Meier says how delays, cancellations and bottlenecks on Germany’s railway network are increasingly disrupting freight flows across the continent. He warns that if policymakers continue prioritising passenger services at the expense of freight, they risk eroding Europe’s industrial competitiveness at a moment of already fragile economic stability.

Peter Reinshagen: "It is a few minutes before midnight."

Responding to the VAP statement and the NZZ article, Ermewa Managing Director Peter Reinshagen describes the state of the sector in stark terms: "It is a few minutes before midnight." He argues that freight rail cannot remain viable unless all actors work together with far greater seriousness and shared responsibility. According to Reinshagen, cooperation must strengthen across customers, freight forwarders, railway undertakings, wagon keepers, infrastructure managers and policymakers, particularly within frameworks such as the Joint Network Secretariat (JNS), the AVV and ongoing digitalisation programmes.

Reinshagen also stresses that future regulation must be practical and evidence-based, designed to improve safety rather than add cost without purpose. He criticises what he calls contradictory pricing developments, including rising track-access charges and simultaneous subsidies in Germany, arguing that they distort the market and weaken rail’s competitive position. Beyond structural reform, he calls for new and genuinely implementable ideas, such as enabling pallet transport in both directions on the same rail route, to increase efficiency and attract new flows. Without this, Reinshagen warns, the sector will "go downhill", urging all stakeholders to work together to prevent such a decline.