The German state-owned rail freight operator DB Cargo ceded more territory than ever to other railway undertakings in 2025. Its performance declined by around 20%. The rail freight industry overall also performed much worse than in 2024.
DB Cargo lost 7% of the total market share in 2025 (measured in tonne-kilometres). This is a bigger loss than the company has ever recorded before. It comes amid far-reaching restructuring efforts at the operator, which could see a stunning 6,200 people laid off by 2030.
Challengers (private operators and foreign incumbents) are taking a larger share of the pie, and accordingly grew their collective market share by 7%, according to a report by the German Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency). The final score for 2025: 67% for challengers, 33% for DB Cargo.
The challengers have been able to compensate for DB Cargo’s declining performance, says the German agency. However, they have not been able to prevent a decline in the overall market. The industry’s performance worsened by 5.4%. In 2024, RUs in Germany managed 134 billion tonne-kilometres, whereas in 2025 this number fell short of that: 127 billion tonne-kilometres. Since the peak in 2022, rail freight performance has fallen by 15.3%.
Infrastructure works
Germany’s general rail infrastructure overhaul has contributed negatively to this development. Throughout 2025, freight operators faced many route closures and lengthy diversions across the network.
The Federal Network Agency report also links the poor freight performance partly to these operational disruptions. Every month of 2025 recorded lower train-kilometres than the corresponding month in 2024. Declines ranged between 2% and 13%. In terms of tonne-kilometres, a similar picture emerged during the year.
Besides the infrastructure works, the German agency pointed to the economy as a factor negatively impacting the rail freight sector. “At the end of 2025, the economy stagnated at a low level and the manufacturing sector recorded declines, which affected rail freight transport.”
The overall rail freight volume in Germany, according to Eurostat, declined by around 4.6% to 328 million tonnes. Train-kilometres (the number of kilometres driven by freight trains) declined by 5.1%. This, interestingly enough, suggests that the average rail freight haul distance fell slightly, despite the many detours.
