The Portuguese rail freight company Medway has announced it will renew the contract with the specialist in train maintenance and repair Emef in Entroncamento, Central Portugal. Medway will contract 50 additional workers to increase quality service in the workshop, where it will upgrade 25 locomotives and 2,500 wagons.

Medway initially planned to create a subsidiary for these tasks with its own installation, but recently decided to outsource this project recently to optimise the installation of Entroncamento. Besides, Medway will invest an additional 10 million Euros in its new rail freight station in Famalicão, close to the northern border with Spain. This new installation will strengthen Medway’s services for tyre company Continental, optical instruments manufacturer Leica and fashion company Salsa.

Emef was a subsidiary of the rail freight arm of Comboios de Portugal (CP), the national railway company. The Swiss sea shipping company Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) acquired CP Cargo in 2017, as a result of the privatisation programme of the Portuguese government. In effect it created Medway. The new company has a 90 per cent market share in the Portuguese rail freight market and has developed new services with Spain, France and Germany. Emef is still a state-owned company, being the main train maintenance operator in Portugal and having contracts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Angola, Mozambique, Madagascar, Argentina, Peru, Spain and Switzerland.