Europe Opened Its Railways to Competition. It Still Hasn’t Built a Single Rail Market.

Wendover Productions makes an appealing prediction: European railways are entering the same transformation that turned aviation into a mass-market industry. Private operators will lower fares, create new demand, develop unconventional routes and eventually challenge airlines.

There is evidence for the first part of that argument. There is considerably less evidence for the promised revolution.

The central weakness is that Wendover mistakes the legal right to operate a train for the ability to build a profitable railway service across Europe. Competition has improved selected domestic routes. It has not solved the infrastructure, capacity, financing, technical and commercial barriers that make international rail fundamentally different from aviation.

Four years after the video's argument, the European Commission is still proposing legislation to fix problems the video identified as obstacles to a coming revolution. That is not a minor qualification. It changes the entire forecast.

1. The Fourth Railway Package opened the market, not the railway network

Wendover describes the Fourth European Railway Package as effectively opening the market to any public or private operator wishing to run passenger trains anywhere in the EU.

That is broadly correct as a description of the legal direction, but it compresses several distinct reforms into a much more complete-sounding achievement.

International passenger rail access had already been opened under the Third Railway Package, effective from 2010. The Fourth Package extended open access to domestic passenger services, applying from the 2021 timetable, and established competitive tendering as the standard for public-service contracts.

Those are important reforms. They do not mean every railway service suddenly became contestable.

The distinction matters particularly for publicly supported routes. The rules allowed unconditional direct awards until 24 December 2023, while contracts awarded before that deadline could continue for ten years, or fifteen years where the operator invested in rolling stock.

The European Commission's own monitoring data illustrates the slow transition. In 2022, only 29% of the EU's 231 billion public-service passenger-kilometres were operated under competitively tendered contracts. Germany and Sweden accounted for 92% of that competitively tendered passenger volume.

The market was opening, but the transition remained highly concentrated. The Commission's Ninth Rail Market Monitoring Report documents the figures and transitional arrangements.

There is another qualification. Open-access passenger services can be restricted through an economic equilibrium test if a proposed service would substantially damage an existing publicly supported service contract.

In other words, a new operator's commercial freedom is not unconditional.

The Commission's July 2025 implementation report also found that delayed national implementation and other complications prevented a comprehensive assessment of the Directive's overall impact.

Wendover presents market opening as a decisive turning point. The institutional evidence describes a gradual, incomplete process.

2. The biggest obstacle is not competition. It is access to the railway itself.

The video identifies the difference between aviation and rail infrastructure:

"Planes only need airports which exist effectively everywhere."

"Trains need tracks."

That observation should have become the central argument of the entire episode.

A railway operator needs much more than permission to sell tickets. It needs suitable rolling stock, maintenance facilities, safety authorisations, predictable access charges and available train paths across every relevant national network.

A train path is a reserved slot allowing a train to use a particular section of railway at a particular time. International services need compatible slots across multiple infrastructure managers.

The European Commission's July 2025 implementation report identifies precisely these obstacles:

• Cross-border services struggle with interoperability and capacity coordination.
• New operators face expensive rolling stock and long delivery times.
• A functioning second-hand and leasing market for passenger trains has not developed.
• Established operators may scrap functioning trains rather than sell them to competitors.
• Maintenance facilities are unevenly distributed and may not be suitable for new entrants.
• Track access charges vary between countries and can make high-speed services expensive.
• Fragmented ticketing makes international journeys less attractive.

These are not hypothetical objections. They are documented barriers identified by the institution responsible for implementing the single European railway area.

European Commission, COM(2025) 368.

Consider the rolling-stock problem.

Wendover celebrates FlixTrain's decision to lease refurbished trains rather than purchase its own fleet. It presents this as an example of how a company can avoid enormous upfront investment.

But the Commission reports that the passenger railway industry lacks a properly functioning second-hand and leasing market. Established operators sometimes prefer scrapping old trains to making them available to competitors.

FlixTrain demonstrates that an asset-light model can work under particular circumstances. It does not demonstrate that the model can be reproduced throughout Europe.

The difference between an exceptional business model and a scalable industry structure is substantial.

3. Europe is still paying for the infrastructure its market reforms cannot provide

The airline comparison becomes particularly weak when the discussion moves from domestic routes to international expansion.

A low-cost airline can introduce a new connection using existing airports. A railway company cannot simply announce a route between two cities and expect a continuous, suitable railway network to exist.

The European Commission's November 2025 high-speed rail communication makes the scale of the problem explicit.

Its findings include:

• High-speed passenger traffic in 2023 was only 17% higher than in 2015.
• The EU target is to double high-speed rail traffic by 2030, compared with 2015.
• The planned trans-European high-speed network requires an estimated €345 billion to complete by 2040.

The growth figures deserve attention.

Using 2015 as an index of 100, the 2023 traffic level was approximately 117. Reaching 200 by 2030 would require approximately 8% annual growth from 2023 onward, compared with roughly 2% annual growth during 2015–2023.

That is a substantial acceleration.

The Commission itself says Europe is not on track to meet its high-speed rail ambitions.

The €345 billion requirement is even more revealing. It demonstrates that the transformation depends on enormous infrastructure investment, coordinated planning and public financing alongside private capital.

The Commission identifies EU funding, national contributions, public guarantees, user charges and private investment as necessary components.

This is not a market waiting for entrepreneurs to arrive. It is a network that governments must finance and coordinate before entrepreneurs can fully exploit it.

European Commission, Connecting Europe through High-Speed Rail, November 2025.

4. The airline deregulation comparison overlooks the economics of the actual market entrants

Wendover's strongest commercial examples are Italo, Ouigo and FlixTrain.

There is genuine evidence that competition can improve rail services. The European Commission's 2025 implementation review reports significant fare reductions and increased ridership following domestic high-speed competition in Italy, Spain and France.

But the examples do not establish that a continent-wide low-cost railway revolution is commercially achievable.

Consider Spain.

In 2023, passenger numbers on the competitive Spanish corridors covered by the IRG-Rail report reached 32.4 million, an increase of 37% over 2022. Seats offered reached 39.4 million, an increase of 47%.

Those are substantial developments.

However, the competitors included Ouigo, a subsidiary of French incumbent SNCF; Iryo, a subsidiary of Italian incumbent Trenitalia; and Avlo, Renfe's own low-cost service.

This is competition, but it is also competition between established national railway groups and their subsidiaries.

It is not quite the same story as independent entrepreneurs creating an entirely new industry.

IRG-Rail, 13th Annual Market Monitoring Working Document, March 2025.

The financial requirements of genuinely independent entry are equally revealing.

In 2024, Antin Infrastructure Partners announced approximately €1 billion in financing for Proxima, France's first independent high-speed railway operator. The company ordered twelve Alstom Avelia Horizon trains under a contract worth nearly €850 million, with first deliveries expected in 2028.

Its initial routes are planned to connect Paris with Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes and Angers.

This is a serious private investment. It also illustrates the enormous capital requirements of entering the industry.

A low-cost airline can build a business around leased aircraft and existing airport infrastructure. A new high-speed railway company may need hundreds of millions of euros just to acquire its trains, before establishing a full operating service.

Sources: Antin's investment announcement and Alstom's €850 million train order.

The distinction is important. Successful competition on existing high-density corridors does not automatically establish the economics of new international routes.

5. The induced-demand argument is weaker than the video makes it sound

Wendover's most ambitious commercial prediction is that low-cost rail operators will create entirely new markets.

The video uses a Ouigo passenger survey to support this argument.

According to the episode, 50% of surveyed passengers would otherwise have taken full-service rail, 25% would have used a car, bus or plane, and 25% said they would not have travelled at all.

The final figure is particularly important to the argument.

But the video provides no sample size, question wording or survey methodology in its presentation. Nor does it establish whether the reported intentions translated into actual additional journeys.

A passenger saying they would not otherwise have travelled is useful evidence of perceived demand. It is not a verified measurement of journeys created by the service.

More importantly, additional demand does not automatically mean profitable demand.

A twice-weekly leisure train between smaller towns in Brittany and coastal destinations in southern France might attract passengers. But the operator must still pay for its trains, crews, maintenance, track access, station services and the positioning of equipment between journeys.

Seasonal demand introduces another complication. A train that fills during summer holidays may be much harder to justify during quieter months.

The video proposes the route by comparing it with Allegiant Airlines' leisure-focused business model. It does not provide a railway operating-cost model demonstrating that the proposed service would work.

The Commission's 2025 implementation report specifically notes that cross-border night trains can operate with negative or very narrow profit margins.

Induced demand is a real commercial opportunity. It is not a substitute for calculating the cost of delivering the service.

6. The video identified the ticketing problem. Europe still has not solved it.

One of Wendover's strongest examples concerns Paris–Manchester.

Passengers must buy separate tickets, transfer between London stations and accept the risk of missing their connecting service without guaranteed protection.

This is exactly the sort of inconvenience that makes international rail unattractive.

But the problem has survived the period in which the video predicted a railway revolution.

In May 2026, the European Commission proposed its Passenger Package, including new rules for single-ticket bookings across multiple railway operators and passenger protection throughout the journey.

The Commission acknowledged that booking multi-operator journeys remains difficult, that fragmented booking systems obstruct passengers, and that protection is limited when travellers purchase multiple tickets.

The proposals would introduce a system in which passengers could buy a combined journey in one transaction and receive assistance, rerouting, reimbursement or compensation when connections are missed.

As of October 2026, these proposals remain subject to the EU legislative process.

European Commission, Passenger Package, 13 May 2026.

The infrastructure problem has followed a similar trajectory.

In June 2026, the EU adopted Regulation 2026/1184 to improve railway capacity planning and cross-border coordination.

The Commission explained that the existing system was largely organised annually, nationally and through manual procedures. The first optimised timetable under the new framework is expected to take effect in December 2030.

European Commission, New EU rules on railway capacity, 10 June 2026.

Consider what this means.

The video presented international railway connectivity as an opportunity waiting for private operators. Yet in 2026, Europe was still legislating to establish the basic systems needed to coordinate train capacity and protect passengers across multiple operators.

Competition did not solve those problems.

They required separate political and institutional intervention.

The verdict: Europe needs a railway revolution, not an aviation analogy

Wendover correctly identifies the potential benefits of competition. Italo, Ouigo and other operators demonstrate that passengers respond to better prices and additional choices.

But the video makes a much larger leap.

It takes successful competition on established domestic corridors and uses it to predict an aviation-style transformation of European international rail.

The evidence does not justify that conclusion.

The Fourth Railway Package opened legal access. It did not create a mature market for passenger rolling stock, eliminate national technical differences, guarantee attractive cross-border train paths, equalise infrastructure charges, provide maintenance facilities or establish universal through-ticketing.

Even the European Commission's current high-speed strategy recognises that these problems require further investment, legislation and coordination.

The video's final recommendation is that Europe must start viewing infrastructure from a continental rather than national perspective.

That is precisely the point it should have placed at the centre of its argument.

The future of European rail will not be decided simply by who can offer the cheapest ticket. It will be decided by who controls the tracks, who finances the infrastructure, who allocates capacity and whether governments can finally make national railway systems function as one network.

Europe has opened the railway market. It has not yet built the railway system that market needs.

Treating trains like planes is an attractive metaphor. Treating the metaphor as an economic forecast is where the argument runs off the rails.

References

1. Wendover Productions — Europe’s Experiment: Treating Trains Like Planes. Original video and primary source for the creator's claims, examples, survey figures and predictions.
2. European Commission — Report on the implementation of Directive 2012/34/EU, COM(2025) 368, 8 July 2025. Documents the remaining barriers involving cross-border capacity, rolling stock, maintenance facilities, ticketing and infrastructure charges, while recognising the positive effects of competition.
3. European Commission — Ninth monitoring report on the development of the rail market, SWD(2025) 239, Part 2, 30 July 2025. Provides the figures on competitive tendering, direct awards and competitors' market shares, including the limitations of the early market-opening period.
4. European Commission — Connecting Europe through High-Speed Rail, COM(2025) 903, 5 November 2025. Establishes the 17% traffic increase, the 2030 growth target, the €345 billion infrastructure requirement and the continuing barriers to new operators.
5. IRG-Rail — 13th Annual Market Monitoring Working Document, March 2025. Supplies 2023 Spanish passenger and seat growth figures and identifies the ownership relationships behind Ouigo, Iryo and other entrants.
6. Antin Infrastructure Partners — Launch of Proxima, 5 June 2024. Documents the approximately €1 billion financing commitment and planned domestic French high-speed services.
7. Alstom — €850 million order for twelve Proxima trains, 3 October 2024. Confirms the train procurement cost, fleet size and expected first deliveries in 2028.
8. European Commission — Passenger Package, 13 May 2026. Confirms that fragmented booking, missing through-tickets and inadequate passenger protection remain unresolved.
9. European Commission — New EU rules on cross-border railway capacity, 10 June 2026. Establishes that national, annual capacity planning remained a structural problem and that the first optimised timetable under the new framework is expected in December 2030.

Clarify the four-year timelineSeparate evidence from interpretation