European Railroad Discussion > Finland: Veolia to Enter Railmarket

In today's Helsingin Sanomat, the main newspaper for several million people, there is a small but important article on Veolia making a discussion on entering the Finnish rail market. The beginning would according to cabinet member specialized to traffic issues probably be in Helsinki metropolitan regional traffic. For the moment Veolia in Finland is one of the three major players in the area, with quite good service levels and reputation. This quality picture will give a pretty good starting point in competition with the local rail monopoly VR-Yhtymä. The Veolia also discusses about bringing its rolling stock for the networks if the competition periods are long enough. Watching other European countries near and further 10 - 15 years seems to be some kind of norm and according to news this would be ok to Veolia too.

To celebrate this expected event (even though it is several years late) here are a few Veolia rolling stock pictures from two other Veolia countries Germany and Sweden.

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1. n/b at Uppsala, October 2007
2. s/b at narvik, June 2012

Remember, John, Veolia gets out of businesses too.

Gerry

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Very interesting pictures Gerry, thanks for sharing these! This must be the Narvik overnight train that SJ bid a winning offer this time.

The Swedish state runs competition who will operate the route every 11 years or so. On this route the trains are making loss and need to be provided a little financial support to operate. Otherwise there would be no need for the state at all and competing train companies could run where ever they wished, providing there is room on the rails. In the north there always is.

For the route the Veolia (probably called Connex at the time) gave a winning bid years ago and they got to operate the route for the first ten years or so. For the current round two years ago it was the operator SJs turn to win the route, and quite likely Veolia had too much to do growing in the south to concentrate on this remote service. But they still run the ski trains to mid Sweden. And maybe ski trains to now finished Abisko station new facilities on Malmbana (on the way to Narvik) as well, when someone charters a train, just like airlines run planes when they are chartered. No difference between forms of transportation in Europe, except in Finland and Biela Russia. So you must realize many people are happy when Finland is taking steps away in this matter from a strange company of Europe's last dictatorship.

The rolling stock for the northern routes is mostly owned by Swedish state and they hire it to who ever needs it, has a license to operate on rail and has financial ability to do so. It says SSRT on the sides of locomotives, when they are owned by this company. Other companies hiring are Railpool, MRCE, etc. big players in Europe and companies like Nordiska Jernbanor (sorry, no picture of this company even with several people trying to catch the (one) train for two years) (I think the name is in Norwegian) use their services.

I think it would be fitting to make a series of pictures of the same Rc6 locomotives with different train operating companies logos, if not colors in another thread!

One more thing: Veolia operations might mean that the ancient Sm1 EMUs would stay in traffic a little bit longer before Veolia can have more new EMUs delivered. Most likely candidates are FLIRT of Stadler and Coradia Nordic of Alstom, both surviving the winters pretty well.

Above the Östgötatrafiken Coradia Nordic class X61 from Sweden and below the FLIRT class Sm6 of Metropolitan Helsinki in Finland. Pictures by Ilkka and Hannu.

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I sincerely hope that Veolia have changed their ways since they were banished from our shores after the shambles that was Connex. They were sacked first from South Central (now Southern Railway) and later from South Eastern after serious management and operational failings. They were terminally useless, best of luck :-)

Interesting, here they have a good reputation on the buses side, which is very far from being an easy business. They one of the major three players for the Helsinki area.

They certainly don't operate any buses in London, you most frequently see their logo on trucks collecting domestic trash. Rather appropriate for anyone who travelled on a Connex 4VEP.

I think I saw a logo of Veolia on the alley cleaning truck in Paris last summer too. A huge truck with and operator washing sidewalks with high pressured water.

Though you seem disappointed with Veolia service, it looks like they can run in many cases run process services in the North quite efficiently.

I have nothing for or again Veolia, but Finland definitely needs alternatives for now monopolized railoperator. The startup operators inside country have failed, mostly because of actions by the monopoly operator VR-Yhtymä to keep them out of the market. Veolia and Arriva are the few players large enough to challenge the company.

I have to admit I also associate Veolia with trash/refuse collection.

Personally, from a French perspective, I hope there is not too much competition in France. SNCF does a remarkably good job in what is basically a monopoly. As far as I can remember, there hasn't been une grève (strike) for over 18 months. And that was to do with an on-train stabbing near Dijon

I think Renfe is planning to run to Paris on their high speed rolling stock once the tunnel near your town is in use. Trenitalia has some plans to Paris direction too. As does the mighty DB. So the "competition" is already there. Just that SNCF volume is so huge that taking a bite here and there while the market is growing will hardly be noticed as the SNCF looks from outside very competitive with its well working 600 unit TGV fleet.

Plus of course we have all these partly SNCF owned coops, that add variety to the SNCF fleet.

From a freight point of view SNCF has haemorrhaged business to competitors whose costs are routinely 20% lower. If the same is the case on the passenger side then there is probably scope for cost savings through competition. Whether RENFE is capable of delivering said competition must be open to doubt.

Yes, cost savings is one point, but just one. Some of the others are like giving a choice to customer, better customer image, better contact to the customer, better service (real or just the feeling), national carrier for Spanish people, better cost accounting, more cost effective operations or rolling stock, better connections, etc. So competition is really a very many sided issue and some players can exploit these possibilities a lot better than others.

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McKey Wrote:
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> Yes, cost savings is one point, but just one. Some
> of the others are like giving a choice to
> customer, better customer image, better contact to
> the customer, better service (real or just the
> feeling)

I would suggest that the lessons of low cost airlines is that the bottom line I.e. how much it costs is what actually impacts the customer. The fact that SNCF is creating a low cost TGV subsidiary shows that they recognise the cost problem. British Airways did the same when they created Go! their low cost operation, which they later sold to Easyjet. I don't think RENFE are noted for running a lean low cost operation.

I think the Renfe has counted the passenger potential anyway in the classes they wish to serve. It might be there and they will learn more everyday by operating a certain route. Without running to Paris a lot of business information would be lost.

I myself take the high end low cost airline most of the time because it is cheaper and the service is as good as on any "premium class"/traditional airline. Besides the low cost airlines often have a lot better planes, even free wifi in air like last time you had arriving here.