The Hungarian rail association HUNGRAIL has published figures on the rail freight industry’s performance in 2025. Despite its best efforts to remain competitive and retain customers, the sector could not improve its financial situation. “A new direction needs to be set”, concludes HUNGRAIL.
Rail freight’s competitiveness in Hungary continues to face significant challenges, writes HUNGRAIL in its annual report. A major factor constraining the sector is the demand side of the business: foreign trade decreased “spectacularly” last year. At the same time, construction and heavy industry also contracted. This had a negative impact on transport demand, and subsequently demand for rail freight transportation.
The result: an 11% decline in rail freight performance measured in tonne-kilometres. This would mean that the metric sank below 10 billion tonne-kilometres for the first time in at least a decade.
Everything works against rail freight
Companies do not necessarily need to suffer from a decrease in demand if they manage to limit costs or raise prices as well. However, that was also not the case in 2025. Competition from the road sector prevents price increases. Rates grew by 2% in 2025, which means a decline in real-terms when adjusted for the 6.7% inflation rate.
At the same time, the unit costs for rail freight operators increased by 11.8% “despite significant cuts and layoffs”, the Hungarian rail association writes. To offset the surge in expenditures, a price hike of an additional 9.8% would have been required last year. The rail freight sector could not do this, leading to a dramatic deterioration in profitability, says HUNGRAIL.
The order book also decreased dramatically, the association writes, putting rail carriers in an extremely difficult position.
HUNGRAIL proposes short-term measures
“The figures of the 2025 Rail Freight Cost Index clearly indicate that the Hungarian rail freight market is no longer struggling with a cyclical economic downturn, but with deeper structural competitiveness problems”, said Lajos Hódosi, Managing Director of HUNGRAIL.
“Rail freight companies have implemented significant internal rationalisation measures in order to maintain their operations: cost reductions, organizational restructuring and staff reductions. Despite this, the increasing energy, track use and operating costs, as well as the decreasing transport volumes, are narrowing the companies’ room for maneuver to such an extent that it may even endanger the stability of the entire domestic logistics chain.”
HUNGRAIL argues that a predictable transport policy and financing environment are necessary to limit the decline of rail freight. It refers to its VÁGTA programme, which includes several short-term measures “that can be introduced immediately”. These include the relaunch of the railway single wagonload subsidy system, a review and competitiveness-based correction of track usage fees, and the domestic introduction of the combined transport subsidy system. “It is particularly important to encourage the reactivation of sidings and ‘last-mile’ connections, as currently less than half of the nearly 944 domestic sidings are actively involved in railway logistics.”