National Express has taken over the operation of Rhine Munster Express (RME) regional rail services in Germany.
The British company was awarded 15-years contracts to operate services on two route in the North Rhine-Westphalia region in February 2013.
On December 13, National Express began running services on lines RE7 (Krefeld-Cologne-Wuppertal-
National Express is also introducing a fleet of 34 Bombardier Talent 2 electric-multiple units (EMUs), which it procured on behalf of regional authorities, for the new service.
Since being awarded the RME services, National Express has also won operating contracts for the Rhine-Ruhr Express (RRX) and is the preferred bidder for the Nuremberg S-Bahn.
Dean Finch, National Express Group chief executive, said: “The German rail market presents significant further opportunity for National Express. We are working on the start-up of our next two German rail contracts on the Rhine-Ruhr Express. These bring our already secured revenues from German rail to €2.6 billion.
“We await the outcome of the appeal on the €1.4 billion Nuremberg S-Bahn contract, have recently submitted a bid for another German rail contract and see an active pipeline of attractive opportunities throughout 2016.”
