Ukraine is known as the “breadbasket of Europe” and is one of the top grain exporters, crucial to providing nourishment & preventing famine in many other parts of the world. Due to the unprovoked invasion by Russia, there are currently 20 million tonnes of grain languishing in Ukrainian storage facilities. It needs to urgently get out to the world market, in order to increase the supply that will then lead to price reductions.

The railway/railroad must now take on an essential role in bringing Ukrainian agricultural goods via neighbouring EU countries to Europe and the rest of the world.
This is why the Support Ukraine Rail Task Force urges all rail market players both in Europe & around the world to participate in the EU Commission’s new “Solidarity Lanes” initiative with measures to facilitate the export of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Die Eisenbahn ist in dieser Krise die Lebensader für Flüchtlinge, Medikamente und andere humanitäre Hilfe. Bereits mehr als 100 EisenbahnerInnen sind bei ihrem Einsatz für die Aufrechterhaltung des Bahnbetriebs gestorben. Darüber hinaus wurde in der vergangenen Woche berichtet, dass Russland seine Angriffe auf die Eisenbahn verstärkt und damit die Anbindung der Ukraine an die Außenwelt ins Visier nimmt – ein weiteres Beispiel dafür, wie gefährdet der Eisenbahnsektor ist!

Deshalb bieten wir Ihnen jetzt die Möglichkeit, die Eisenbahnhelden in dieser Krise direkt zu unterstützen.
Dabei arbeiten wir zusammen mit der globalen Wohltätigkeitsorganisation United Way (unitedway.org), ihrem deutschen Zweig PHINEO (phineo.org) und dessen Ukraine-Programm WE-AID (we-aid.org).

Weitere Informationen zu den Spendenmöglichkeiten finden Sie in der Pressemitteilung, indem Sie auf den folgenden Link klicken.

Dieser Spendenaufruf wurde von der Multinational Support Ukraine Rail Task Force veröffentlicht, einer Partnerschaft von führenden Vertretern der weltweiten Eisenbahnindustrie unter dem Vorsitz von Jolene Molitoris, der ehemaligen Generaldirektorin der US-Eisenbahnbehörde Federal Rail Administration.

The Ukraine Railroad is the lifeline for refugees, medicine, food and other humanitarian aid. Already more than 100 rail workers have died keeping the railroad running. Earlier this week, Russia bombed five railroad stations in central and western Ukraine, killing people and causing disruption - another example of how vulnerable this life-saving rail service is!

This is why we are now offering the chance to directly support all of the railway heroes! We are working together with the global charitable organisation United Way (unitedway.org), its German branch PHINEO (phineo.org/en) and its Ukraine program WE-AID to provide targeted help to the Ukrainian Railroad.

Further information on how to donate can be found in the press release by clicking on the link below.

This call for donations has been issued by the Multinational Support Ukraine Rail Task Force, a partnership of leaders from the worldwide rail industry chaired by Jolene Molitoris, former US Federal Railroad Administrator.

The Ukrainian rail system is the lifeline for refugees, medicine, food and other humanitarian aid. Already more than 80 rail workers have died keeping the railroad running. After all, only today it was reported how Russia is intensifying its attacks on railways, taking aim at Ukraine's connection to the outside world.

We are now offering you the chance to directly support all of the Ukrainian railroad heroes! We are working together with the global charitable organisation United Way, its German branch PHINEO and its Ukraine program WE-AID to provide targeted help to the Ukrainian rail sector.

Further information on how to donate can be found in the press release by clicking on the link below.

This call for donations has been issued by the Multinational Support Ukraine Rail Task Force, a partnership of leaders from the worldwide rail industry chaired by Jolene Molitoris, former US Federal Railroad Administrator.

The German Federal Cartel Office today issued a press release calling for fair competition in digital mobility services - and how it has issued a warning to incumbent DB for possible obstruction of mobility platforms.

It has "come to the preliminary conclusion that certain practices and contractual clauses of DB vis-à-vis mobility platforms constitute an abuse of market power".
Mobility platforms offer innovative digital solutions for integrated route planning and ticket purchase, to help end the fragmentation of EU passenger rail.

Today's conclusion proves to ALLRAIL that, in addition to limiting modal shift to rail, such anti-competitive behaviour by dominant gatekeepers also undermines multi-modal solutions that have the potential to considerably reduce private car use.

This week, the European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM), has joined the newly set multinational "Support Ukraine Rail Task Force" as an observer. EIM is a non-profit association, representing the interests of European rail infrastructure managers in Europe, in particular vis-à-vis the EU institutions.

Two weeks ago, leading rail sector officials in Europe and the USA announced the formation of a Multinational “Support Ukraine Rail Task Force”, in partnership
with Ukrainian Railways "Ukrzaliznytsia" (UZ), the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ukrainian Cabinet. The aim is to coordinate technical, mechanical, and policy support for Ukrainian citizens and the rail sector.

Jolene Molitoris, former United States Federal Railroad Administrator, together with Nick Brooks, Secretary General of ALLRAIL, Ray Chambers, President of the American Association for Innovative Passenger Rail Operations (AIPRO) and Robert VanderClute, former Senior Vice President of the Association of American Railroads (AAR) & former Vice Chair of UIC, have announced the formation of the International Support Ukraine Rail Task Force.

The mission is to respond fully to the appeal of the Ukrainian national rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) urging the global rail sector to do everything in its power to support the Ukrainian rail sector after the unjustified Russian invasion and to completely isolate the Russian Railways (RZD) and Belarusian Railways from international commerce.

The past week has shown European solidarity in action: passenger rail operators of all types are offering free transport to Ukrainians fleeing the terrible events in Ukraine.

Furthermore: one of the members of our association, the privately owned passenger rail operator RegioJet, has partnered with Ukrainian Railways, Člověk v tísni, ČD Cargo & Rail Cargo Group to provide a daily humanitarian night train land bridge between Prague and Kiev. The first service took place during the night of 1st March.

There has been a contrast between the firm and decisive measures to strengthen trade restrictions against Russia in the airline sector compared to the rail sector. This is a surprise, considering the major role that the Russian rail operator RZD played in moving Putin’s military to Ukraine’s border over the recent months.

Today, the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), together with the Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants in Europe (ALLRAIL), the European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services (CLECAT), the European Passengers’ Federation (EPF), Erasmus by Train e.V. (EbT) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), came together to formally close the European Year of Rail, on the occasion of the European Railway Summit organised within the framework of the French Presidency of the EU Council.

It is a great pleasure to announce that one of the world’s leading privately owned public transport companies, The Go-Ahead Group, is joining ALLRAIL.

Go-Ahead operates public transport services in a range of different countries from Singapore to the Republic of Ireland. It literally seeks to “go ahead” and provide a top-notch experience for passengers, so that people leave their cars behind.

مع دخولنا للعام 2022، ليس فقط في أوروبا حيث نرى مزايا افتتاح سوق ركاب القطارات. أماكن اخرى في العالم تشهد المثيل. أينما وجهنا الإنظار، الاستثمار الخاص ينمي اجمالي قطاع السكك الحديدية، مما يؤدي الى انخفاض انبعاثات ثنائي أكسيد الكربون الضارة. الافتتاح السريع لسوق السكك الحديدية هو الحل الامثل لجعل التنقل وسيلة أنظف. لننظر الى اسبانيا: ابتدأ مشغلين بين مدريد وبرشلونة بالتنافس فيما بينهما بشهر مايو 2021، ومع حلول اغسطس فاق عدد مستخدمي هذا الخط ب 17% مقارنة ب اغسطس 2019 - سنة قبل جائحة الكوفيد

On 15 December 2021, the well-known magazine Time Out revealed “the 22 best new things to do in the world in 2022”. Coming in at Number 17 is a new international night train service between Prague and Brussels that will be commercially viable, with an innovative concept that will attract new passengers to rail.

Why then are many state-owned rail incumbents lobbying for taxpayer subsidised Public Service Obligations (‘PSOs’) for international night trains instead – a repeat of the model that already failed around 10-15 years ago. Are memories really so short?

As we enter 2022, it is not just in Europe where we see the benefits of market opening in passenger rail. Other parts of the world are seeing the same. Wherever we look, private investment is growing the total rail sector and, by doing so, reducing harmful CO2 emissions.

Yesterday (14 December), the EU Commission (EC) published a new Action Plan to grow long-distance & cross-border passenger rail in Europe, which aims to increase the very low modal share of rail passenger traffic.

The main barriers have been identified, and it is clear that the EC understands that urgent change is necessary. For example: in ticketing, where cross-border rail journeys should become easier to book and entail less risk for passengers, and we should not need to wait until 2030 in order for this to happen.

“Rail Freight Forward” (RFF) is a coalition of European rail freight companies with the commendable goal of shifting 30% of all goods transported in Europe to rail by 2030. What does RFF want? Simple Answer: “Driving a Train Through Europe Must Finally Become as Easy as Driving a Truck”.

This can easily be converted to passenger rail too: Driving a Train Through Europe Must Finally Become as Easy as Driving a Bus. Passenger operators should be able cross internal EU borders on their own & not need to co-operate with others.

Therefore: it a blatant double standard that many of the state-owned rail incumbents who support Rail Freight Forward - and compete with each other in cross-border rail freight - do exactly the opposite in passenger rail, co-operating with each other instead. 

It has been revealed that the Transport Ministers of Sweden, Denmark and Belgium have written to EU Transport Commissioner Vălean, asking her to force Germany to instate taxpayer subsidised Public Service Obligations (PSOs) for international night train services on its territory.

Probably, they would then directly award this PSO to a collaboration of their state-owned incumbents.

But this international incumbent PSO model for night trains failed in the past – and it will fail again.

Instead, Europe needs to encourage commercially driven night train services that will grow the market while reducing the dependency on the taxpayer.

In a major new set of articles, independent reports from Investigate Europe have revealed that the growth of European cross-border passenger rail is still severely hampered by many national governments protecting their state-owned railway companies.

In the 6-7 countries where it has been allowed to happen so far, market liberalisation has really boosted modal shift to rail.

Yet in most of Europe we still see governments deliberately delaying rail liberalisation until the 2030s and sabotaging the goals of the EU Green Deal.

The vertical integration of rail infrastructure managers and market dominant rail operators does not work, as we have seen in many examples in recent years, such as in France, which has some of the highest track access fees in Europe.

Instead, it is unbundling that drives innovation, quality, efficiency and jobs. With coalition negotiations taking place in Germany right now, it is crucial to have a rail infrastructure there that is focused on the public interest - and not the interests of operators within the same holding company. A new 2^nd Rail Reform in Germany is urgently necessary.

In a major new article, the global news channel CNN shows how competition in long distance passenger rail in Italy has led to a huge growth in passengers and reduced the domestic flight market.