Rail service facilities in the European Union

Rail service facilities, ranging from maintenance depots to refuelling stations, marshalling yards and freight terminals, are indispensable components of the European rail system. As EU rail markets evolve toward greater liberalisation and cross‑border integration, ensuring fair, transparent and efficient access to such facilities has become a cornerstone of the Single European Railway Area. In November 2025, the European Commission launched the High‑Speed Plan, which aims to deliver a well‑functioning faster high‑speed rail network by 2040. To enable this, one key action is removing entry barriers for new high‑speed operators by ensuring better coordina tion of track capacity, fair track access charges and non‑discriminatory access to service facilities. For freight, and especially single‑wagonload operations, service facilities constitute an essential part of the business model. Users face issues related to charges, access conditions, neutrality and revenue‑management practices that can disproportionately affect competitiveness. Another pressing question is whether operators can feasibly build their own facilities or whether high investment costs mean only dominant players can, raising concerns about replicability, market foreclosure and possible unbundling requirements. Some facilities remain natural monopolies with high sunk costs while others operate in more contestable environments, making a one‑size‑fits‑all approach potentially burdensome or misaligned with market realities. Examples such as UK regulatory decisions on strategic assets, like the Channel Tunnel, illustrate the challenges involved in balancing investment incentives, fair access and competitive neutrality. Hence, new rules on rail capacity and service facilities are under discussion at the European level, emphasising harmonisation, digitalisation and cross‑border coor dination. The following sections will discuss the asymmetrical regulatory approach to service facilities, explore different business models and their relevance to different services, and lastly how to ensure effective coordination between service facility operators and rail infrastructure managers. This policy brief summarises the key points discussed in the 28th Florence Rail Forum.