Industry parties had identified a number of issues resulting from the measures: the rules would burden wagon owners and maintenance providers disproportionately, reduce maintenance intervals and thereby threaten wagon and maintenance supply security in Switzerland, and reduce international interoperability. Moreover, they pointed to a lack of resources at maintenance companies that makes the tight implementation deadline of 1 January 2026 unrealistic.

Industry consultations

Recent consultations with the industry have “yielded new insights into the potential implementation of the measures”, FOT told DVZ. The outcome is that FOT is now partially conceding on that last point – the timeframe for implementation. It has postponed the deadline for one measure by a year to 31 December 2026.

This concerns the requirement for all freight wagons to undergo a technical inspection, for which there simply is not enough capacity. According to the FOT, the bodies responsible for the maintenance of freight wagons had estimated that only 20% of the fleet could be inspected by the end of this year. Upscaling and growing maintenance capacity before that time is not an option due to staff shortages, training requirements and equipment procurement.

Deadlines for other measures remain unchanged, including those that seem to fall under the same chapter in the new FOT order: thermal overload checks on tread-braked wheelsets, requirements for the average wheel diameter on particular wheelsets and sound tests for tread-brakes wheelsets with composite brake blocks.

Freight volumes have been heavily impacted by ongoing infrastructure works on both sides of the border, but specifically by those between Stresa and Arona in Italy. These works started last year and will continue at least until 2027, which is too long for business to cope.

Competition from Gotthard

What’s more, the Gotthard Base Tunnel has proven more competitive in this context, and has captured a lot of North-South volumes through Switzerland. “From a production efficiency point of view, Lötschberg-Simplon is at a disadvantage”, explains Vender. There isn’t any prospect that anything will change in the coming years.

As a result, the Domodossola only has recently seen only two rail services per week, which is not enough to justify keeping the staff depot open. The 15 employees will keep their jobs but will need to be transferred elsewhere.

The safety measures come in five parts. For one, the FOT wants wheelsets to have a diameter of at least 864 millimetres. The current European standard is 860 millimetres. Moreover, the Swiss government agency wants more regular maintenance.

Maintenance intervals

“Depending on the type of brake shoes and wheel diameter, the technical inspection must be carried out after 50,000 kilometers or 200,000 kilometers. Currently, in some cases, these inspections are systematically carried out at a later date.”

As part of maintenance checks, wheels should be visually inspected and the minimum diameter checked. Checks should also determine whether the wheels have suffered heat or other damage, and a sound test should be carried out to identify defective wheels.

In the future, every freight wagon must have a valid certificate of its last technical inspection. This allows railway companies to check whether a wagon has been properly maintained before it is included in a train traveling through Switzerland.

The safety of wagon wheels has become a top issue since the 2023 derailment in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which caused severe infrastructure damage and kept the tunnel closed for a year. The incident posed a major challenge for rail freight on this crucial route. A derailment on Sweden’s Malmbanan line was also the result of a broken wheel.

Wagon owners are furious

Many voices in the rail freight industry are now protesting the FOT’s new rules. The International Union of Wagon Keepers (UIP) calls it “a rogue move”. UIP points out that Switzerland primarily targets wagon owners and those in charge of maintenance.

“We deplore a one-sided view that basically relieves the other rail system actors of their duties and does not consider safety investments on the side of operations and infrastructure”, the association adds. It also points out that in the case of the Gotthard accident, the investigation found that wagon owners complied with maintenance obligations.

The Swiss rail freight association VAP concurs. “With these new measures, the Federal Office of Transport is placing disproportionately high obligations on wagon owners compared to other stakeholders.” VAP highlights the reduced maintenance intervals as particularly disruptive, because it will “massively impact the availability of freight wagons and the profitability of operations.”

The maintenance interval measure, according to VAP, will lead to short-term bottlenecks in the freight industry and harm Switzerland’s supply security. “This topic was frequently discussed in advance and at the roundtables, but surprisingly little was considered in the FOT’s decision-making process.”

The Swiss association also foresees a reverse modal shift, rail freight’s nightmare scenario, because of the additional costs.

Absurdity

Across the border, Germany’s wagon owner association VPI also sharply criticised the FOT’s new rules. It highlights similar issues as VAP and UIP, and says that the new rules ignore the results of the so-called Joint Network Secretariat (JNS), an initiative by the European Agency for Railways (ERA) that aims at EU-wide harmonisations actions following rail accidents or incidents.

“It reduces to absurdity the relevance of the work of the JNS task force, which is expected to publish its European measures by the end of the year”, UIP also says about the step taken by FOT.

Switzerland wants the measures to be fully implemented by the end of the year. VAP, UIP and VPI all question the viability of that plan. Maintenance companies already lack resources, points out VAP, and the new rules will make that situation worse. More freight wagons will be unavailable more often and for longer periods of time.

“This, too, will initially be felt primarily by the freight forwarding companies, as they will need to purchase more wagons to transport the same volume of goods. As a consequence, more and more shippers are likely to turn away from rail freight transport and transport their goods by road in the medium term”, VAP states.

An obstacle to Rhine-Alpine rail freight

Importantly, the new Swiss rules also endanger cross-European interoperability. With its unilaterally introduced measures, Switzerland deviates from common European standards. Wagon owners may have to establish wagon fleets specifically adapted to Swiss rules, adding another cost factor to the mix. With Switzerland centrally located along one of Europe’s most important rail freight corridors (Rhine-Alpine), the rules impact a key artery for international traffic.

Wagon owners’ union UIP hopes that the focus will shift onto railway undertakings (RU) and the infrastructure manager: “It is unacceptable that RUs keep scaling back their technical on-site inspections and cutting investment in staff education, especially in a system that crucially depends on rigorous controls before, during, and after train operations.”

“We would do well to remember that […] the investigation identified areas for action not only for wagon keepers but also railway undertakings and the infrastructure manager”, UIP notes.

‘All wheels must be checked’

The issue with the wheels cannot be attributed to a lack of maintenance, but it is rather a systematic issue present in the majority of wagons, experts claimed. The most common braking system is brake pads, which press on the wheel to make it stop. This process might cause heat, especially since now trains are travelling at much higher speeds, requiring more braking power.

Moreover, the newer pads are made of composite, which are less apt at dissipating heat than the older ones made of cast iron. The leaked SUST report also recommends that all wheels equipped with brake pads made of composite materials should be checked. Moreover, they say that maintenance should be radically changed as well, both in terms of cadence and technology.

Many similar cases detected

The commonality of this problem is highlighted by the fact that 77 cases of cracked wheels have been recorded since the derailment in the Gotthard, Swiss media SRF wrote. In 10 cases, the wheel broke. Among the most notable instances is one from November 2024 in Domodossola, northern Italy. One of the wheels was discovered to have a crack by chance during a brake test, causing the immediate halt of the convoy, avoiding significant damages by pure luck.

The derailment in the Gotthard Base Tunnel

The derailment occurred on 10 August 2023 at the Faido interchange. A train operated by SBB Cargo derailed due to a faulty wheel and smashed into the gate separating the two tubes of the tunnel infrastructure. The accident caused over hundred million euros in damages and huge losses for operators, which had to deal with reduced capacity along the main rail axis between Italy and Switzerland for over a year. Initially, one tube of the tunnel was reopened for freight traffic, allowing the transit of around 100 trains every day. For a full reopening of Gotthard Base Tunnel, the industry had to wait until 2 September 2024.

Another reason for this minor setback was the large amount of infrastructure works carried out in Switzerland’s neighbouring countries throughout the first half of this year. “The major construction work on the access routes in Italy and Germany will lead to a significant decline in rail transport from summer 2024”, the Swiss Federal Office of Transport (FOT) stated.

Transalpine rail volumes showed minor growth

Some of the cross-alpine rail traffic was diverted via the Lötschberg-Simplon axis, which registered a growth of 23 per cent, as the FOT mentioned. “Overall, the volume of goods transported by rail through the Alps was slightly higher in the first half of 2024 than in the same period last year”, the FOT explained, claiming that these figures increased by 1.3 per cent.

Road transport across the Alps also posted positive numbers. “The additional traffic on the road flowed primarily via the Gotthard (+5.2 percent) and the Great St. Bernard (+18.7 percent)”, the FOT added. Road traffic across the San Berdardino and Simplon axis, however, decreased, although the FOT did not specify by how much.

The tunnel’s downtime has been a disaster for freight operators that usually send their trains through there. It is the only line in the area equipped to handle freight trains with a 4-metre profile. Re-routing freight trains has been a Herculean task for operators, especially Italian ones, both in terms of costs and capacity availability.

A few weeks after the accident, SBB decided to reopen the undamaged eastern tunnel exclusively for freight trains, which allowed the transit of around 100 trains daily.

Frejus railway also closed

To make matters worse, a landslide closed off the Frejus railway, which connets Italy and France, only a few days after the derailment in the Gotthard tunnel. The closures of the Gotthard and the Frejus axes have cost millions of euros to rail freight operators active on these routes. Fortunately, the Gotthard tunnel is reopening today, but the Frejus tunnel will remain closed until early 2025.

The derailment in the Gotthard Base Tunnel

The accident occurred in the early afternoon of Thursday, 10 August 2023 near the Faido interchange, a gate separating the western and eastern tubes. A faulty wheel on a wagon of a freight train operated by SBB Cargo caused a derailment that significantly damaged the infrastructure of the western tube.

Once a temporary gate was placed, freight traffic could gradually restart in the eastern tube of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The repair works, which took about a year, cost over 100 million euros, with 7 kilometres of railway, including 20,000 sleepers and the ballast underneath, being completely replaced.

Concerning transalpine traffic, Italy is currently dealing with traffic issues both to France and Switzerland. The main border crossing to France, the Frejus Railway, has been closed since August 2023 and will be until early 2025. Moreover, the main line to Switzerland, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, has been working at partial regime for one year and will get back at full capacity in three weeks.

This year will be worse than the last

“These problems, together with natural events such as the floods in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany and the Red Sea crisis, are causing a collapse in rail freight traffic”, Fermerci and Fercargo stated in their letter to the Ministry. The Italian rail freight sector has already been declining, with a 3,2 per cent decrease in volumes between 2022 and 2023. However, things seem to be even worse this year, with an expected decrease of 6,7 per cent in 2024 compared to 2023. “The estimated economic damage for 2024 is about 90 million euros, with similar prospects for the next two years”, the associations stressed.

The closure of the Gotthard Base Tunnel has been a significant thorn in the side of the rail freight sectors since it is the only line in the area equipped to handle freight trains with a 4-metre profile. A few weeks after the accident, SBB decided to reopen the undamaged eastern tunnel exclusively for freight trains, an ongoing initiative that allows the transit of around 100 daily trains.

A disaster expensive for everyone

For everyone else, re-routing freight trains has been quite the Herculean task for rail freight operators, especially Italian ones, both in terms of costs and capacity availability. A few days after the accident in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, for example, the Frejus Railway, the main rail connection between Italy and France, was closed due to a landslide and has not reopened yet. The closures of the Gotthard and the Frejus axes are costing millions of euros to rail freight operators active on these routes. Moreover, fixing the Gotthard Base Tunnel is also quite an expensive project, as estimates claim that it would cost around 100 million euros.

Also read:

• Will Switzerland fund the upgrade of the railway on the Rhine’s left bank?
• More DAC tests are over, developments remain vague
• Switzerland joins the club of countries increasing TACs

Gotthard accident had minimal impact in Switzerland

The FOT specified that the issues at the Gotthard Base Tunnel, connecting Switzerland and Italy, had a minimal impact on rail freight volumes. This infrastructure has been only partially available after a train derailment in August 2023, leaving only one of the two tunnels usable. Most of the traffic was diverted through the Simplon axis or the older Gotthard mountain railway. The Gotthard Base Tunnel is expected to be fully operational in the summer of 2024.

If the partial closure of the tunnel did not have a significantly disruptive effect for Switzerland, things are quite different for its neighbour in the south: Italy. Paired with the closure of the Frejus Railway, the main railway leading into France, the impact on Italy is quite higher, as its main connections to the rest of Europe are impaired.

Road freight volumes dropped, but not enough

As mentioned, there was also a drop when it comes to cross-Alpine road freight traffic in 2023, which decrease by 1.4 per cent compared to 2022. However, this decrease was not enough for Switzerland to meet its goals to have maximum 650,000 lorries crossing the Alps. In total, there were 916,000 of them throughout 2023, which is 12,000 fewer than 2022, but still almost 300,000 over the initial goal.