The Swiss Parliament had decided to extend financial support to the company, owned by Hupac, SBB and BLS, until the end of 2028. However, last spring came the decision of ceasing operation at the end of this year. Now, to add insult to injury, the last convoys run a day earlier than planned. “In its nearly 25-year history, RAlpin has transported over 2 million lorries through Switzerland by rail”, the company noted.

From rolling highway to rail highway?

This is the second rolling highway service ceasing operations this year, after the one between Orbassano, in Italy, and Aiton, in France. The service was halted in August 2023 after a massive landslide closed the main line between France and Italy for over a year and a half. This stoppage led to a halt in public subsidies, which was fatal for the initiative.

With rolling highways, the whole truck is placed onto rail wagons, including the tractor, and trains are equipped with passenger cars for the drivers. This concept now seems to have died out, as there are no longer such services in Europe. On the other hand, there has been a rise in rail highway services, where only the semi-trailers are placed on freight trains and travel without their tractor and driver.

This new type of service requires further equipment, whether at the terminal or in terms of wagons. The main players in this industry are Modalohr, CargoBeamer, VTG, and Helrom. Many new connections of this kind have been launched over the past few years, but this segment still occupies a minor part of the rail freight sector as a whole. However, its contribution to the modal shift are impactful, especially if the number of services continues to grow.

RAlpin stated that the rolling highway service, which entails the transport of lorries by rail, is no longer viable despite ongoing financial support, existing demand and good capacity utilisation. On the other hand, the decline of this service was already visible in 2024, when around 10 per cent of the total trains planned had to be cancelled. Things did not improve with the start of 2025, as RAlpin highlighted. In the first quarter of 2025, there was a 20 per cent drop in the number of trains compared to the same period last year: from 1,018 to 794.

A dying concept?

The past couple of weeks have been quite negative for rolling highway services that from Italy cross the Alps. Other than the premature announced interruption of the Novara-Freiburg, the service connecting Orbassano with Aiton, in France, was also discontinued on 21 April, which will likely lead to a significant reverse modal shift. In other words, transalpine roads will see more trucks running, both between Italy and France and between Italy and Switzerland.

With the closure of these two lines going to Domodossola, Italy is running the risk of remaining temporarily isolated from the rest of the continent in terms of rail connectivity. The main border crossing with France, via the Frejus Railway, has been closed since August 2023 and will be until early 2025. Moreover, the other main connection between Italy and Switzerland, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, has also been (partially) closed since August 2023 and should reopen at the beginning of September.

Closures all along the Rhine-Alpine Corridor

When it comes to the Rhine-Alpine section in Germany, the Rhine Valley line between Rastatt and Baden-Baden will also be closed between 9 and 30 August, just like the Novara-Domodossola line in Italy. Some industry players from France, Germany and Switzerland, led by Hupac, will establish a new route via the Offenburg-Wörth section to keep trains running. However, it is not yet clear if similar initiatives will be undertaken to find alternatives to the Novara-Domodossola line in Italy.

Novara-Freiburg Rolling Highway

The Novara-Freiburg RoLa, connecting northern Italy with southwestern Germany via Switzerland, was launched in 2001 and has been managed by RAlpine ever since. The RAlpine consortium comprises three of the largest rail freight companies in the country: private operators BLS and Hupac and the Swiss national railway holding SBB. So far in 2023, the RoLa has kept growing despite a general decline in rail freight in Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Office of Transport recently underlined that tonnes moved via rail throughout the country decreased by six per cent.

Also read:

• The ERTMS dilemma: ‘some locomotives might not run up to 2026’
• The Gotthard Base Tunnel won’t be fully operational until next summer
• SBB Cargo: ‘No RU has managed to offer single wagonload traffic alone’

The terminal in Duisburg offers several connections to and from Poland, more specifically Gadki and Warsaw/Pruszkow. Novara is an important getaway for connections with Central and Southern Italy, namely Rome/Pomezia, Bari, and Pescara/Manopello.

Pordenone – Duisburg

For the trains going from Germany to Italy, the new departures are scheduled for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, adding up to the existing ones on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. All closing times from Duisburg Hohenbudberg are scheduled for 9 AM.

For the trains leaving Italy for Germany, the new departures are scheduled for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, adding up to the existing ones on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Between Monday and Friday, the closing time is at 6:30 pm, while on Saturdays it is scheduled for 11 am.

Novara – Ludwigshafen

On the route from Ludwigshafen to Novara, the new departure is scheduled for Mondays, with the closing time set at 4 am. On the Novara-Ludwigshafen line, the new departure is scheduled for Saturdays, with closing time scheduled at 12 pm.

Also read:

• Hupac’s terminal opening ánd RailFreight Summit in Warsaw
• German Cabinet approves: priority for coal on railways

Taking over a hub

Novara is a hub in Hupac’s intermodal network for transalpine traffic. Situated in industrial northern Italy, it also serves as a consolidation point for Italian traffic flows. For example, it links to Bari and Pescara in the south of Italy and German cities as Hannover, Karlsruhe and Köln, apart from Rotterdam and Zeebrugge.

“Today Novara CIM handles over 60 train pairs a week, mostly from the operator Hupac Intermodal, on a 150,000 square metre facility equipped with seven loading and unloading tracks”, explained Piero Solcà, director terminal infrastructures at Hupac Group.

More investments

Nevertheless, acquiring the terminal’s operations did not seem enough for the company since it wants to invest more and upscale its services. “We aim to develop further this strategic terminal for modal shift of transalpine traffic. The investment plans are already in the drawer. They include the lengthening of the tracks from the current 600 metres to the European standard of 740 metres, new entry/exit tracks, gantry cranes and a sophisticated OCR system for the automatic reading of train and loading unit data,” continued Solcà.

Apart from that, the managing company Combiconnect has already ordered equipment that will be used in the terminal from 18 October onwards. The order includes two new cranes and three tractors.

Focus on terminals

Hupac’s focus on expanding its terminal network has been apparent throughout the year. Before taking over operations at the Novara CIM terminal, the intermodal company acquired a 4,16 per cent share at the WienCont terminal in Vienna back in August. “This participation is an important step in expanding the intermodal network, which will bring more traffic to the railways in the future and increase intermodal traffic volumes. Terminals are door openers for a shift to rail and support the green spirit”, emphasised back then Michail Stahlhut, CEO of Hupac.

On top of that, Hupac has started constructing a new terminal in Central Poland in April 2021. The new facility will be located In Brwinów near Warsaw. By autumn 2022, the operator will handle 740 metre long trains on four transhipment tracks at this centrally located facility. Simultaneously, it aims to start constructing another terminal, this time in Minsk, Belarus, to put the Eastern European country in the game of the New Silk Road more actively. Not only will it use it as a transit country, but it will also have a transhipment terminal there that will provide better and more efficient links with Eurasian routes.

Also read:

• Hupac buys stake in trimodal terminal WienCont
• Hupac adds second train to Lübeck-Novara service
• Hupac outsets wave of intermodal expansion

Not a given

Services catered towards the P400 semitrailer mean a great deal for the intermodal market. The P400 semitrailer has 3 metres of internal height, good for three levels of pallets. This means more capacity in a single trailer, a great advantage in the market today.

Although the relevance is evident, the P400 railway service is not a given everywhere in Europe. The railway network existed before semitrailers came to the market, so it was initially not designed for this type of unit. In France, the network only allowed for the transport of P400 semitrailers since February 2020.

Wider network

With the new P400 connection Bari-Novara, Hupac serves more than only Italy. Novara is a large hub with a wide range of services to Germany, Benelux and all the way up to Scandinavia, and with multiple daily departures.

From Novara to Bari, departures are scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. From Bari two trains depart on Thursdays and one on Saturdays. Dangerous goods can only be loaded on the connections during the week, and not on Saturdays.