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Rolling-stock financing structures
Purchase, finance lease, operating lease, manufacturer financing, state-guaranteed pool models, re-use guarantees and capital-service guarantees — how each shows up in German SPNV practice.
The 28 SPNV Aufgabenträger
Profiles of every German SPNV Aufgabenträger (public transport authority), with legal form, remit and the vehicle-financing model they use.
The SPNV operators (EVUs)
Who runs Germany's regional trains and who stands behind them — ownership, market shares and what each operator's balance sheet means for vehicle financing. Starting with DB Regio.
The regulatory framework that shapes financing
Regionalisierungsgesetz, Regulation (EC) 1370/2007, state-aid rules, Directive 2012/34/EU and ERegG, vehicle authorisation / TSI and ECM — curated through a rolling-stock-finance lens.
Curated short analyses
A short, deliberately curated set of notes on recent legal and regulatory developments affecting rolling-stock financing in Germany. No news feed — just takeaways.
Next dates
The nearest entries from the calendar — submission deadlines, entry into force, sector events.
What this site is — and is not
rail.reg is focused squarely on rolling-stock financing in Germany: the asset class, the PTAs that procure it, the legal framework that shapes it. The site intentionally does not cover specific transaction structures and it is not a generic European rail-regulation site.
It is written as personal notes by Dr. Thomas Prüm, and it complements German-language reference material that readers will already know — in particular schienennahverkehr.de for the sector-policy view.
These notes are not legal advice and do not create an attorney-client relationship. For the full legal notice, see the Disclaimer.
Recent notes
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2026-09-20Case law
Track-access charges after the CJEU judgment — the re-tariffing, the Köln litigation and SPNV contract cash flows
After the CJEU struck down the SPNV Trassenpreisbremse in March 2026 (C-770/24), the Bundesnetzagentur withdrew its December approval and re-set the 2026 charges on 22 July: SPNV +9%, long-distance −17%, freight −12%, shifting some €400m onto regional services retrospectively and within an unchanged cost ceiling. Over forty operators and the Free State of Bavaria are litigating in Köln; the transport ministers have resolved conditionally to sue the Federal Government; a further +7.8% is applied for in 2027. The exposure runs through PSO availability payments — the same cash flow that services fleet debt.
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2026-07-14Market access
Open-access Fernverkehr fleets: Italo, FlixTrain and the financeability of merchant rolling stock
Italo's planned entry from April 2028 (30 Siemens Velaro, an announced €3.6bn, via Atrium SE) and FlixTrain's 65 Talgo 230 put roughly a hundred long-distance trains on order for Germany without any PSO revenue behind them. The Bundesnetzagentur's proposed competitor clause of 30 June 2026 — a 60–75% capacity cap per operator on congested corridors — addresses the track-access side of the financeability question; residual value, maintenance architecture and framework agreements make up the rest of the checklist.
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2026-07-08Legislation
Schiene.NRW: one SPNV authority for North Rhine-Westphalia from 2027
On 7 May 2026 the NRW Landtag adopted the ÖPNVG reform: from 1 January 2027 a single statewide Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts — Schiene.NRW — takes over SPNV Aufgabenträgerschaft from VRR, NWL and go.Rheinland. Pending procurements will be awarded by the new authority; existing Verkehrsverträge migrate in stages to 2028. For rolling-stock finance, the change of the public-side counterparty puts guarantee assumption and change-of-counterparty clauses in NRW fleet financings on the review list.