Railpool is further expanding its range of services for cross-border passenger transport. In future, the company intends to provide rolling stock in an even more targeted manner in order to promote international rail connections in Europe.
“We are seeing a growing demand for flexible, interoperable and readily available solutions to expand European rail transport efficiently and sustainably,” explains Torsten Lehnert, CEO of Railpool. “With our tailor-made leasing solutions for passenger coaches, we want to actively support this demand and look forward to receiving enquiries.”
They’ve released a brochure to gauge interest in Siemens’ Vectouro and Vectrain locomotive-hauled passenger trains. The pitch is as follows:
- An effective shift away from air and road transport towards rail requires flexible, interoperable passenger transport solutions offering maximum comfort, beyond what operators can currently provide.
- Locomotive-hauled trains in a full-service leasing model allow operators to quickly increase capacity and guarantee maximum availability. Flexible vehicle configurations and versatile design options — both exterior and interior — can match the intended use and comfort level.
- They are already authorized for European routes (DE, AT, CZ, HU, SK, PL, with other countries possible) so they can be used across borders without extensive retrofitting or lengthy approval processes.
Last but not least, Railpool has an extensive locomotive fleet, so you can combine the offer with a locomotive.
Trainpool, when locomotive-hauled stock is preferred over multiple units
Trainpool focuses on a locomotive-hauled product, that is already on the market. As an example, Trainpool shows a 7-car Vectouro set (a driving trailer is optional) paired with a 230 km/h Vectron locomotive (DE, AT approval) for cross-border operation. The carriages are pressure-sealed and feature wide gangways. At around 20 m per car, the train offers over 390 seats.
Trainpool points out when locomotive-hauled concept would be preferable over multiple units, which are very dominant in the market:
- Existing MUs are limited to a handful of corridors (e.g. DE–AT, DE–CH–IT, DE–CH–IT–AT);
- ETCS upgrades are prohibitively expensive for small fleets – with a locomotive with ETCS you are covered;
- The Vectouro/Vectrain has a vmax of 230, which is less than (very) high speed trains (multiple unit) but, states Transpool, in many regions there are no true high-speed options, so 200–230 km/h loco-hauled trains are a solid alternative.
They acknowledge that EMUs with distributed power offer better performance, but timetables and route characteristics limit this advantage. Hamburg–Munich is cited as an example by Trainpool/Railpool.
Railpool explains:
To be fair, things are still not going very smoothly with the open-access passenger rail market, especially when it comes to introducing new rolling stock. Many parties remain cautious — financiers and the manufacturers. The result is that there’s almost no modern rolling stock readily available if a new operator wanted to launch a service today.
That’s why charter trains, night trains, and international open-access services still rely on old to very old carriages, most of which originally came from state railways. These no longer meet modern standards and are approaching the end of their service life.
Are there really no initiatives at all? A few: there was an attempt with ace4rail. Flixtrain has secured financing for new Talgo trains. Lumo is running in the UK, Leo Express in Czechia with FLIRT. Worth mentioning too is Siemens’ Smart Train Lease, which offers a short-term, full-service operational model for regional trains — something that could also work for long-distance services. We have the channel tunnel boom now – with Gemini and Virgin and others, and challengers in the French high speed market that are not state-owned (Le Train, Velvet).
And the lease companies? AERRL has pledged: We want to invest in (new) interoperable passenger trains. Railpool is now launching a concrete offer.
