In February 2001 the Swedish National Rail Administration (Banverket) commissioned the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) to carry out a study of railway access conditions in a few countries. The study should deal with access conditions in general with special focus on responsibilities, financing, regulation and pricing of the so-called services facilities mentioned in the European Union (EU) Directive 2001/14, Annex II, 2. The purpose of the study was to highlight these matters as input in the ongoing work of implementing the new EU Directives. In the railway field the EU aims at making access for international (freight) traffic easier in various ways. Standardisation, co-ordination, simplification etc. are some important key words. The EU member states have not only different safety regulations, signalling, ATP, electrical traction systems ? but they also have an astonishing range of organisational peculiarities topped up by different access regimes and ?charges. Finally the regimes for the services facilities (terminals etc.) mentioned in the EU Directive?s Annex vary a lot. It is therefore very difficult for a potential international operator to get a clear picture of the whole chain of events from loading in one country to unloading in another, especially if he wants to operate the service with his own traction and staff all the way. Denmark has a generally liberal attitude towards new entrants. All licensed operators may run train services on the Danish Railway Agency?s infrastructure. Their web-site gives a very good step-by-step description of the Danish approval process. The information is, however, only available in Danish. The liberal attitude towards new entrants is fairly recent and has not yet led to any major changes on the operator scene. Germany differs from most other Member States in the way that apart from Deutsche Bahn, DB, there are more than 150 non-federal railways. About 50 of these operate passenger services. There are reciprocal rights to use each others ...