French private rail operator Europorte, increased its turnover by 15 per cent in Q4 2024 and by 12 per cent for the full year to 168 million euros. The figures have been released ahead of the publication of the Channel Tunnel operator’s annual results on 6 March.
“70 per cent of Europorte’s global activity is in traction provision for the block train and single wagonload (SWL) segments in France and in several European countries,” commented the company’s chairman and CEO, Raphaël Doutrebente, in an interview with Railfreight.com. He confirmed that Europorte, a subsidiary of Getlink, had been profitable last year but could not disclose at this stage whether the company had improved on the EBITDA of 29 million euros in 2023. “What I can highlight is that Europorte’s profitability has increased by a cumulative 200 per cent since 2015.”
Doutrebente, who also chairs the industry association Alliance 4F, has been at the helm since July 2020, having joined Europorte at the beginning of 2018. Last year, the company had benefited from buoyant demand for industrial goods such as chemicals and energy products, he explained.
Single wagonload went up, automotive went down
“We handled a good deal of SWL traffic between France, Germany and Belgium and are also serving a growing trade with Eastern Europe, for example, Slovakia and Romania.Our routes extend to Ukraine too, the war with Russia having modified freight flows somewhat. Overall, we’ve made significant inroads into the SWL market which was essentially one dominated by SNCF and have won new contracts as a result of providing an excellent quality of service.”
While there have been some headwinds from the automotive vertical, Europorte has been able to rely on sustained demand from cereals shippers, the agro-industrial group, Soufflet, being one of its major customers. “The export market for cereals has suffered greatly but there has been no let-up in supplying the food processing industry in France.”
Construction materials have also provided Europorte with a steady volume of business. “We enjoyed a positive dynamic last year and have made a very strong start to 2025 too with an excellent January and are hoping we can continue in the same vein throughout the year, ” he noted.
Intermodality remains a challenge
Europorte had dabbled in the intermodal rail-road freight transport several years ago only to pull-out in response to operators in the segment pursuing a strategy of driving down prices in order to achieve volume. “The combined segment has come through a very rough patch which Europorte has not been exposed to. Operators are now playing catch up rather than posting net growth.”
Europorte operates an average of 250 trains per week served by a fleet of 80 locomotives for main line operations, 70 shunting locomotives and 10,000 wagons. According to its latest annual figures, the company handled 7.4 million tonnes of freight in 2023, the equivalent of 1.8 billion tonne-kilometres transported. It employs 900 staff.