Captrain and Medway continue to gain ground on Renfe Mercancias

The rail freight market in Spain is seeing a stronger presence of private operators, especially Captrain España and Medway, a subsidiary of MSC. Over the first half of 2024, this trend continues with both companies posting positive numbers across the board. The numbers of the state-owned operator Renfe Mercancias, on the other hand, keep dropping.

The data comes from a report by the Spanish Markets and Competition National Commission (CNMC) with information regarding tonne/km, net tonnes, and train/km. The data is provided for the intermodal segment as well as the block train one.

Captrain and Medway

The two companies are the most prominent private rail freight operators in Spain. In the first half of 2024, Captrain increase its tonne/km by 13.7 per cent, its net tonnes by 8.5 per cent and its train/km by 10.8 per cent compared to the same period last year. For them, the growth mostly concerns intermodal transport with increases of 40.8 per cent, 29.7 per cent and 38.8 per cent respectively.

For Medway, the situation is slightly different but equally positive. The first six months of 2024 brought growth in all categories, with a +20.6 per cent in tonne/km, +16 per cent in net tonnes and a +23.4 in train/km. MSC’s rail freight arm, however, saw higher increases in block trains, with increase of 71.4 per cent, 53.6 per cent and 121.6 per cent respectively.

Renfe Mercancias

The increases experienced by Captrain and Medway are not solely fruit of new traffic being generated. Unlike the two companies, the state owned operator Renfe Mercancias posted decreasing numbers in almost every category in the first half of 2024. Tonne/km decreased by 7.3 per cent, net tonnes by 7.8 per cent and train/km by 8.2 per cent. The biggest fall for Renfe Merciancias was in the intermodal sector, with -25.7 per cent, -20.1 per cent and -22.4 per cent respectively.