This is the second time that a large rail freight player receives a loan from this package. A couple of months ago, rail freight wagon lessor VTG got 340 million euros for the purchase of new rolling stock. Over the past few years, KfW IPEX-Bank has also invested in MFD Rail for the purchase of over 6,000 intermodal wagons and Wascosa for the acquisition of 570 new units.

The vessel

The vessel IVY is made up of two units, IVY 1 and IVY 2. For the longer elements (217 metres), “each end is securely attached to IVY 1 and 2, which provide buoyancy”, a note from the official website of the project explained.

For the shorter special components (39 metres), the two units are put together to form one vessel. IVY will also feature 23 kilometres of steel wire spread over 66 winches. This allows it to submerge elements 40 metres below the water with high precision. While the vessel was being tested, the bed of the sea was made ready to welcome the structures of the tunnel.

This month, IVY will be taken near the Danish entrance of the tunnel and the elements will be loaded with ballast to make sure they sink. “IVY 1 and 2 will then transport the element to the trench and immerse it in a controlled and precise operation”, the Femern note added.

The Fehmarnbelt tunnel

The project for a tunnel under the Fehmarn Strait was officially approved by the Danish government in 2011. Construction started in 2021 with initial estimates of 5,1 billion euros, but it has now increased to roughly 7,5 billion euros. Other than rising costs, the project also experienced delays. The commissioning of the tunnel was planned for 2029, but it is now postponed by two years.

Ahead of the Hamburg-Berlin closure, infrastructure manager DB InfraGO was warned multiple times that a single disruption on the detour route could be dangerous. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

On top of the overhead line failure, there were more infrastructure failures in Peine, and overhead line damage on the line between Hannover and Lehrte. “All three lines are essential for smooth rail freight operations while the Hamburg-Berlin corridor renovation continues”, explains the German rail freight association Die Güterbahnen. Rail freight is said to be hit particularly hard as widespread and unplanned shutdowns take place on sidings.

Six-figure losses

“The Port of Hamburg is suffering particularly badly from the shutdown”, commented the association’s Managing Director Peter Westenberger. “But so are the railway companies. One of our members pointed out that last night alone will cause six-figure losses.”

“Customers will feel the effects for days, perhaps weeks. […] The lines were not adequately upgraded beforehand. Consequently, rail freight traffic is currently very vulnerable. Now it is crucial to mitigate the damage and get operations back on track as quickly as possible”, Westenberger said in the afternoon of 1 April.

“Since this is the primary detour route for the Hamburg – Berlin closure, the German railway infrastructure is not accepting any trains into Germany. At the same time, service in the opposite direction has also been suspended”, says METRANS.

The restrictions affect all services transiting Germany to and from Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, the Balkans, Poland, and, to some extent, domestic German services.

UPDATE:

Services were said to be restarting as of the late afternoon on 1 April.

The Deutsche Bahn holding, DB Cargo’s parent company, published its annual report for 2025 last week: a good occasion to dive deeper into the circumstances at its freight subsidiary. Things are looking better, but not exactly rock solid. Further restructuring changes could provide the needed push to get DB Cargo back on track.

DB Cargo’s restructuring proceedings, which started in 2022, are not immediately visible when looking at the company’s basic financial indicator: revenue. Note that this number includes data from all of DB Cargo’s subsidiaries, including outside of Germany. Revenue has remained relatively stable, hovering between 4.5 billion and 5.5 billion euros since 2017.

EBIT is more ‘all over the place’

How different does that picture look when looking at Earning before Interest and Taxes (EBIT). EBIT is an indicator of operating performance, but does not yet include expenses such as taxes and interest payments. DB Cargo has not achieved a positive EBIT during any of the assessed years, with lows recorded during the pandemic years. In other words, the company’s operations are fundamentally unprofitable.

This is underscored by the operator’s performance figures. During the pandemic, DB Cargo broke the downward volume and operational performance trends. It transported more freight and did more transport work in terms of tonne-kilometres. Despite that, the finances were worse than ever. The more the company transported, the more money it lost.

That is clearly not a good sign for a rail freight operator – especially when it can no longer count on money transfer from its parent company Deutsche Bahn. But for all the criticism that DB Cargo has received, there has been a turnaround in 2022 in the company’s financial performance.

When looking at the EBIT figures, there is a clear change starting in that year. Since then, DB Cargo has only recorded year-on-year improvements on EBIT. In 2025, the operator came very close to operational profit at -7 million euros. There are various reasons for this, and there are also reasons to think that this may continue into the future.

Subsidies contribute most

The main windfall, which cannot directly be ascribed to sound business management or a restructuring, came in the shape of subsidies. Germany approved a 300 million-euro subsidy for single wagonload (SWL) traffic in 2024. DB Cargo received 163 million euros from those funds, which are also reflected in the EBIT figures. Moreover, DB Cargo received millions in track access charge (TAC) subsidies. In 2025, federal subsidies totalled 305 million euros (195 million for SWL, 78 for TAC, 32 for investments).

Additional federal funding has clearly helped DB Cargo to substantially improve its operational result. This, of course, is not necessarily a solid long-term plan. In order to continue cutting costs, the freight operator has put several plans on the table. These pertain to some of the biggest expenditures: personnel, maintenance and unprofitable contracts.

Halving the workforce

DB Cargo is planning a massive workforce reduction of over 6,000 employees. That would shrink the size of the workforce (in Germany) by around 50%. Across Europe, DB Cargo has over 25,000 employees. Terminations have helped to save 149 million euros on personnel costs in 2025.

The company has also been ending unprofitable contracts. This deliberately shrinks the company’s business, while improving operational performance. It has also sold the intermodal business of its subsidiary Transfesa.

This is reflected in the rolling stock fleet of the operator. Its size is shrinking, and has been shrinking consistently for a couple of years. Simultaneously, DB Cargo has sold 60 locomotives to Beacon Rail and around 6,000 wagons to GATX in sale-and-leaseback agreements. The share of leased and rented wagons in the overall wagon fleet has seen an uptick in 2025 – despite volumes declining.

The increase in the share of leased and rented wagons during the pandemic years coincided with a growth in volume. That is not the case now. If DB Cargo continues to pursue this path of operational flexibility, its owned wagon fleet could keep shrinking in size.

As a result, the provision of locomotives and wagons should become more flexible. This creates financial flexibility as well – DB Cargo won’t need to pay for their maintenance. The operator also gained 300 million euros from the sale.

Together, the termination of unprofitable contracts, reduction in volume and decline in maintenance costs (along with some other things) helped to shrink material costs by 292 million euros, DB said.

Will it be enough?

The DB restructuring proceedings will continue going forward. Decentralisation in several business units that have their own rolling stock and personnel at their disposal should help improve operational efficiency. Further workforce reductions, bonuses for long-haul drives for train drivers and far-reaching SWL remodelling (going to four central shunting hubs) should also aid financial performance.

DB Cargo will need to “clarify details” on its restructuring plan in the summer of 2026. Only then, gradual implementation of the newly proposed plan will begin. With -7 million euros in EBIT in 2025, the company is close to achieving a positive operational performance. However, its net financial result was around minus 40-60 million euros, according to CEO Bernhard Osburg. There is some way to go to profitability by the end of the year.

Laude organises these last-mile operations from its terminals in Zamość, near the Ukrainian border, and Sosnowiec in the Silesian-Dąbrowa industrial regions. It also does last-mile operations from partner terminals, including Duisburg.

New connection to Italy

The Polish operator is also thinking about further business development: “The next step will be an intermodal connection linking Warsaw and Silesia with northern Italy. In each of these transport options, there is a possibility to extend the route to Ukraine and Turkey”, Laude says.

Laude points out that their greatest advantage – the ability to load and unload from the side, top, and rear – makes its transport solution “comparable to traditional road transport.”

Laude uses both trailers that allow unloading of bulk cargo from containers and the transport
of heavy steel coils thanks to specially designed containers with a trough. “Additionally, […] we are able to transport any type of cargo, provided it is palletised or loaded into big bags”, commented Marcin Witczak, CEO of Laude Smart Intermodal. “In full train transport, we carry biomass, grain, fertilisers, and similar cargo.”

In Germany, the freight operator’s earnings grew thanks to several factors. These included higher revenues from compensation payments for locomotive supply contracts and infrastructure-related train cancellations. Additionally, government subsidies for single wagonload traffic, infrastructure, and track access charges contributed to the increased earnings.

On the other hand, DB Cargo saw a revenue decline of 434 million euros (-8%). This was driven primarily by performance in Germany and the United Kingdom (including metal transport), as well as in Spain (partly due to the sale of subsidiaries). Price adjustments, however, partially mitigated this reduction. When adjusted for negative currency effects, the decrease in revenue was slightly less significant, says the DB report.

Positive cost developments

At the same time, DB Cargo underwent some significant positive changes in the cost picture. Material costs shrank by 292 million euros. Lower activity levels, particularly reduced expenditure on maintenance services, energy, and purchased transport services, were the main contributors to the decline. The drop in maintenance costs was primarily a result of lower volumes.

Personnel costs were 149 million euros lower than in 2024, primarily due to reductions in the German and Spanish workforces. Depreciation also declined by 95 million euros – a result of an extension of the useful lives of locomotives and freight wagons in the balance sheet, as well as the sale of rolling stock.

Sale-and-leaseback

The latter point (at least partially) relates to the sale-and-leaseback of some 6,000 wagons (GATX) and 60 locomotives (Beacon Rail). “The sale and subsequent leaseback of part of the rail vehicle fleet is a contribution to the transformation of DB Cargo, making the provision of locomotives and wagons more flexible. The proceeds from the sale also contribute to improving the financial situation of DB Cargo”, the 2025 report specifies.

The Swiss freight operator SBB Cargo recently undertook a similar step, indicating that it improved operational flexibility. In the long term, the sale-and-leaseback will help reduce depreciation write-offs and reduce maintenance costs.

“Positive one-off effects from sale-and-leaseback transactions served as a bridge in 2025 until the implemented operational measures took effect”, explains DB. In total, DB Cargo got 300 million euros from the sale of the wagons and locomotives.

Following the ECJ ruling, Germany now needs to reform its TAC system. This is proving to be a politically sensitive task: the German states, who fund local passenger rail, fear that they will no longer be able to so if prices go up. Under the existing pricing system, charges for local passenger rail are tied to funds given to states for the local rail operations.

The transport ministry is aiming for a renewed system by 2027: “Our goal is and remains to present a new track access charge system by the timetable change in 2027”, minister Schnieder said earlier.

That timeline does not satisfy the rail freight sector. These companies are hoping for short-term clarity for their own financial planning. Without knowing what’s coming, such planning becomes guesswork. If they plan ahead with a price that’s too high, they could lose customers. If they calculate with a price that is too low, they might have to compensate for additional costs later, writes German publication DVZ.

Full-cost or marginal-cost?

Lastly, there is the question of the TAC model. Currently, Germany charges infrastructure usage fees on the basis of the full-cost principle. The rail freight industry has spoken out in favour of a marginal-cost pricing system, where companies pay only for the infrastructure costs added by an additional train and a possible efficiency markup. A study by INFRAS, commissioned by rail freight association Die Güterbahnen, has shown that this could reduce TACs by 54% for freight operations.

The marginal-cost system is the standard pricing model in Europe. However, the German transport minister has expressed concerns that its implementation in Germany would lead to a major financing shortage for the railways.

Die Güterbahnen claims otherwise: “Contrary to repeated claims by the Federal Ministry of Transport, such a switch would not create a funding gap, and therefore there would be no additional burden on the federal budget if three existing federal funding streams were consolidated simultaneously”, the association wrote.

Supposedly, the eight billion missing euros are already provided for indirectly. The German government provinces retroactive TAC subsidies, the local public transport funds and planned maintenance subsidies.

“Track charges based on marginal costs lead to more traffic and thus higher revenues. The current full-cost system, on the other hand, stifles traffic and makes the network operator sluggish. The figures show: The alleged funding gap is a political scare tactic – nothing more”, Die Güterbahnen’s Managing Director Peter Westenberger commented earlier.

The WLE train ran between Lippstadt and Warstein, in northwestern Germany. Along the line, roughly 30 kilometres long, WLE usually moves construction material as well as beer and also provides single wagonload services. The company has been at the forefront of DAC testing, as it carried out the first commercial tests for traditional DAC last summer.

DAC tests recap

Since the beginning of 2026, the amount of tests announced and launched in the context of DAC escalated. Other than the WLE tests, in cooperation with coupler manufacturer Voith, 2025 also saw DAC tests in Sweden to assess the coupler performance under extreme weather conditions.

This year is the turn of Austria Rail Cargo Group, which is running similar tests to the ones done in Sweden. Large-scale commercial tests are scheduled for 2027, where seven trains will be equipped with the coupler and will run in nine different countries with raw materials or carrying out intermodal services.

80 weeks of paused operations is a lot, but the Dutch had to adapt. The work started in late 2024.

Since then, there have been diversions along other routes and a reduction in capacity. The Netherlands has had to run many thousands of trains less than previously. Naturally, last year’s announcement by Germany that the Third Track connection wouldn’t be completed in the coming decade came as a major disappointment and setback.

German unclarity hinders Dutch infrastructure planning

Germany does not have the capacity to work on the Third Track project. The country is working on a major overhaul of its entire rail network. Other projects are higher on the priority list.

RailFreight.com’s sister publication SpoorPro reported that the Dutch infrastructure manager ProRail still has no plan on how to cope with this situation. “It is still too early to say exactly what impact the works in Germany will have”, spokesperson Marcella Wesseling told SpoorPro. “Whether additional freight trains will be diverted depends on the nature, scale and schedule of the works in Germany. The German side has not yet provided this overview.”

Clearly, coordination between the Dutch and German infrastructure managers is lacking. This puts rail work in the Netherlands in question. ProRail and DB InfraGO had earlier agreed on a timeline that would allow the Dutch to work on ERTMS implementation and renovations in Eindhoven and Venlo.

Political games?

The head of the Dutch rail freight association, Hans-Willem Vroon, told SpoorPro about his suspicions that there are some political games going on. “Perhaps Germany is also sending a signal to The Hague that it believes the Venlo-Kaldenkirchen and Oldenzaal-Bad Bentheim border crossings should be used more frequently.” These are alternative border crossings that could facilitate diversions from the Third Track works.

“Moreover, I suspect that DB InfraGO is deliberately holding back the growth of rail traffic because their rail network simply cannot cope. It is striking, after all, that in Switzerland the complaints about the German feeder and outbound lines are even greater than here, and Switzerland does operate with multiple border crossings.” These include Basel, Schaffhausen and St. Margarethen.