When analyzing today's long-distance passenger rail business in Europe, mainly two major railway strategy types can be pointed out: historic incumbents and challenging new entrants. Due to historic circumstances incumbents in long-distance passenger rail entered the business earlier than recent challenging entrants.

Historic incumbents in the railway industry are defined as national passenger rail operators that were organized in most countries as governmental organizations until the beginning of Europe’s railway reforms in the 1990’s (National Economic Research Associates, 2004, pp. 1-2). Today varying levels of vertical integration of national rail companies are recognizable in the European states. In some countries long-distance incumbents are independent legal entities, in others long-distance passenger transportation is operated as part of a huge railway holding.

As a result of the initiated European reforms the liberalization of Europe’s railway market led to the emergence of new challengers in the long-distance segment that are in ownership of private investors. This section analyzes the top challengers’ strategies. The four most promising European private TOCs based on entered markets and chosen routes as well as the largest long-distance incumbents are presented.