With effect from today, 1 April 2025, major parts of RFC Orient/East-Med have been fully integrated into RFC Rhine-Danube as a consequence of the revision of the TEN-T Regulation. The revised Regulation integrates the eleven Rail Freight Corridors and the formerly known nine TEN-T corridors into nine European Transport Corridors. The former Orient/East-Med Corridor (RFC OEM) has ceased operations and most of its lines are now forming part of RFC Rhine-Danube.

The participating Infrastructure Managers and Allocation Bodies decided at an early stage for this transition in order to maximise the potential synergies of the two RFCs, which already have had joint activities, working groups, and meetings for three years now. This former close and fruitful cooperation has enabled a smooth and early transition ahead of the legal deadline.

What does this geographical alignment mean for the business of our customers?

The gradual transition of the C-OSS service for managing PaP and Reserve Capacity requests had already started in autumn last year.

–  As a first step, the C-OSS of RFC RD offered Reserve Capacity for timetable 2025 also on most of the lines of RFC OEM (except lines in Greece and Bulgaria, which have not been integrated into RFC RD).

–  As a second step, the C-OSS of RFC RD is offering PaPs on the lines of RFC OEM for timetable 2026 (except lines in Greece and Bulgaria).

The Management Board of the geographically aligned RFC RD is looking forward to cooperating with its customers and stakeholders further on. In order to use synergies with other RFCs, similarly as done between RFC RD and RFC OEM before, the Management Board of RFC RD will continue convening joint meetings with the Railway Untertakings and Terminal Advisory Groups (RAG/TAG) of other RFCs. This year, the Management Board is already organizing a meeting on 14 May in Nagycenk/Sopron jointly with RFC Amber and RFC Baltic-Adriatic, and will also organize a meeting on 22 October in Vienna jointly with RFC North Sea-Baltic.

A map of the new RFC RD alignment you can find here: https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/who-we-are/

The Management Board of RFC Rhine-Danube is pleased to invite you to the first joint meeting of the Advisory Groups of Terminal Owners and Managers (TAG) and the Railway Undertaking Advisory Groups (RAG), organized in cooperation with the Baltic – Adriatic and Amber corridors.

Participants will depart from Sopron, with the main event taking place in Nagycenk from 9:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on 14 May 2025, followed by a special side event.

A key focus of the discussion will be gathering input from RUs and terminal representatives on how to improve consultation processes on key topics such as infrastructure development and investment needs, performance of the corridors, and measures to improve operational efficiency along the rail freight corridors of the new European Transport Corridors.

We would like to inform our customers about the publication of the updated overview of Temporary Capacity Restrictions (TCRs) on RFC Rhine-Danube. This update comprises updates to TCRs planned for timetable years 2025, 2026 and 2027.

It can be accessed via our website (https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/temporary-capacity-restrictions-tcrs/ ), as well as via the CIP (https://info-cip.rne.eu )

We would like to inform our customers and potential customers that new Corridor Information Document (CID) for Timetable 2026 (Sections 1-4) has been published.

The CID provides key details about the RFC Rhine-Danube network, including infrastructure characteristics, access conditions, and rules for capacity allocation, traffic, and crisis management. Harmonized across all RFCs, it ensures consistency and ease of use for international rail freight operations. The CID for RFC Rhine-Danube specifically aligns with these standards to support users effectively.

The document is now available on our website: https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/cid-books/

It can also be accessed via the CIP tool: https://info-cip.rne.eu/ and in the NCI tool: https://rne.eu/it/rne-applications/nci/

We are looking forward to welcoming you on the RFC Rhine-Danube network.

We would like to inform all interested stakeholders that the recently updated Transport Market Study of RFC Rhine-Danube (RFC RD) is now available. You can download it via https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/documents/

The update of this study was conducted in a joint project involving all 11 RFCs, which has enabled a harmonised structure and a harmonised methodology across all RFCs. The key conclusions included in the RFC RD-specific parts of the joint study are the following ones:

• A large proportion of the rail freight transport passing through the RFC and its border-crossing points involves Munich, Linz, East Slovakia, West Hungary, and Budapest as the typical origins. Also, outside the current corridor area different zones can be found that contribute to freight traffic on the RFC, such as the rest of Germany (especially the Rhine-Ruhr area and Hamburg), France, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Greece, and Ukraine.
• As far as the destinations are concerned, numerous zones benefiting from RFC RD’s services fall outside the current corridor area, such as areas in the rest of Germany (Rhine-Ruhr, Hamburg), Italy (Veneto), Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria.
• The most important relation is between East Slovakia and Ostrava (Chechia). Other important relations are Landshut-Linz and Munich-Linz.
• On relations within the catchment area of RFC RD, rail freight transport has a share of 36% in the total amount of international freight transport. This is a volume of 94 million tonnes.
• The baseline scenario was the 2022 year. All three future scenarios (Reference, Projects and Sensitivity) show an increase in international freight transport along the RFC.

• Overall, the sensitivity scenario can be regarded as a potential maximum growth for rail, considering both economic developments and assuming that the network of RFC RD would fully comply with the mandatory TEN-T infrastructure standards by 2030.
• Finally, the results of the RAG/TAG survey conducted between September 2023 and January 2024 about the occurred and expected impact of the establishment of the RFCs are summarised in the study as well.

Our Management Board would like to take the opportunity to thank all respondents for their valuable input and time.

The Rail Freight Corridors, in close cooperation with RNE (RailNetEurope), are pleased to announce a number of PCS trainings scheduled in early 2025.               

The annual training focuses on the corridor specific functions in PCS, and provides you with valuable, practical insights needed for requesting Capacity on the Rail Freight Corridors for timetable 2026.

Moreover, the training enhances your knowledge by introducing you to (new) features and functions in PCS in general; informing you about the news for TT2026 and giving you the chance to practice live with individual and corridor-specific exercises. The trainings are held in English language.

If you would like to participate to the trainings, please register under one (or more) of the following links:

• 22^nd – 23^rd January in Frankfurt jointly organized by RFCs Rhine-Alpine, Scan-Med, Orient/East-Med, North Sea-Baltic and Rhine-Danube à Click here to register
• 28^th – 29^th January in Paris by jointly organized by RFCs North Sea-Med, Atlantic and Mediterranean à Click here to register
• 12^nd – 13^rd February in Tallinn jointly organized by RFCs North Sea-Baltic and Amber à Click here to register
• 18^th – 19^th February in Sopron jointly organized by RFCs Baltic-Adriatic, Orient/East-Med, Rhine-Danube, Alpine-Western Balkan, and Amber à Click here to register
• 25^th – 26^th February in Milano jointly organized by RFCs Scan-Med, Baltic-Adriatic and Mediterranean à Click here to register

Should you wish to refresh your PCS knowledge before the trainings, recordings from past year’s online sessions are available here.

Please feel free to share this invitation with other colleagues.

To learn the evolution of the level of satisfaction of our customers with the products and services of the RFC, we conducted our fourth annual user satisfication survey in 2024 jointly and in a harmonised way with the other ten RFCs like in the previous years. The summary of the results specific for RFC Rhine-Danube can be downloaded here. We would like to thank everyone who filled it in for the valuable feedback and time. The Infrastructure Managers in the Management Board of the RFC will take a deeper look into the results in order to define concrete actions for improvement with a focus on the topics with which the respondents were the least satisfied.

We are looking forward to exchange views on the results and proposed improvement actions with our customers in the next meeting between the Railway Undertaking and the Terminal Advisory Groups with the Management Board and the Executive Board in May 2025.

The application of the quieter routes shall start on 8th December 2024 in the first group of implementing Member States.

Quieter routes are those, in which there is a high level of freight trains operated during night. More precisely, quieter routes are ‘part of the railway infrastructure with a minimum length of 20 km on which the average number of daily operated freight trains during the nigh-time as defined in national legislation transposing Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council was higher than 12.’

Only wagons compliant with the Noise TSI are allowed to operate on quieter routes from 8th December 2024.

Rail Freight Corridors Rhine-Danube and Orient / East-Med would like to give their customers an overview of the designated quieter routes here: https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/quiter-routes/

We are pleased to invite you to the RNE RFC Session 2024, taking place online on October 30, 2024, from 10:00 to 12:00 (CET). This special event will highlight the main functionalities of several key RNE IT tools, including:

• Path Coordination System (PCS) and its new Capacity Broker (PCS CB)
• Customer Information Platform (CIP)
• Rail Facilities Portal (RFP)
• Train Information System (TIS)

During the session, we will offer detailed presentations and guidance on these tools, helping participants to better understand their features and the benefits they bring to the railway sector.

The session will be co-organized by the RFC Network and the RNE Team, and each tool will have a dedicated 30-minute slot, including time for questions and answers.

The session will be recorded and published on the RFC Network YouTube channel for later viewing. The event will be held in English language.

If you are interested don’t hesitate to ask your questions directly to the experts. We are looking forward to your participation!