mit beschränkter Haftung (mbH.) | |
Industry | Rail freight |
Fate | Underperforming, absorbed |
Successor | Captrain deutschland |
Founded | 2000 |
Founder | BASF AG, Hoyer Group , VTG AG , Bertschi AG |
Defunct | 2010 |
Headquarters | Essen, Germany |
Area served
|
Europe : Germany, Switzerland, Benelux, Poland |
Key people
|
Sven Flore (COO) Thomas Kratzer (managing director) Mark Bertram (managing director) |
Number of employees
|
~180 (2008) |
Subsidiaries | rail4chem Benelux B.V. rail4chem transalpin AG fer Polska S.A. |
Website | www.rail4chem.com |
RAIL4CHEM was a German rail freight transport company, and the parent company of a number of European subsidiary rail freight transport companies including rail4chem Benelux B.V. (Rotterdam), the rail4chem transalpin AG (Basel) and Fer Polska S.A. (Warsaw).
The business was acquired by Veolia Cargo in 2008, which was acquired by SNCF in 2009. In 2010 the company was grouped under SNCF's new freight train brand Captrain, and absorbed into the Captrain Deutschland subdivision, and became a provider to the division of long distance freight trains.
In 2000 the railway company RAIL4CHEM was founded as a joint venture between three German companies: BASF AG (Ludwigshafen), Hoyer Group and VTG AG (both located in Hamburg) and one Swiss firm Bertschi AG; headquartered in Dürrenäsch. Hoyer merged its rail freight subsidiary (Hoyer Railserv, formed 2000 from RSE Cargo.) into the company in 2002.
Initially the company was set up as a rail freight service for chemical companies, the organisation serves both national and international freight movements within Europe.
Amongst the first workings were the movement of chemicals from the works at BASF Ludwigshafen to Aachen to be moved further by the Belgian state railway SNCB / NMBS.
Later the company took on non-chemical industry freight work.
In 2004 the company gained a safety certificate to operate in the Netherlands, and in Switzerland. In 2005 the founder companies increased the capital of the company by €4 million to €5 million to enable the purchase of multi-system electric locomotives. Safety certificate for operations in Belgium was acquired (by the subsidiary Rail4chem Benelux BV) in January 2006, and for operations in France in February 2006,