locomotive, near
Polepy, Czech Republic. Metrans Rail was originally established under the name
Railtrans by Petr Šimral and Radan Stift, a pair of
locomotive drivers, in August 2003. At its commencement of operations, it concentrated on irregular freight movements, often running cross-border trains into neighbouring
Germany. On 1 September 2004, Railtrans became the first Czech
open access operator to offer regular passenger trains between the Czech city of
Liberec and the German city of
Zittau; this route was served using several
Uerdingen railbuses. During April 2006, Railtrans announced plans to compete with state-owned
Czech Railways on the line Prague - Ostrava. Despite being scheduled to do so, it failed to start operations in December 2006 due to the selected
Siemens ES64F4 electric locomotives having not received the necessary permissions. Siemens was able to attain approval in December 2011. Railtrans was refused access to
Prague Main Station on account of the scheduled reconstruction of the line that had limited capacity to the station; the existing
subsidised services of incumbent
Czech Railways were given priority over new potential services. During September 2007, Railtrans announced its decision to abandon the project entirely. In August 2009, Metrans acquired a 50 percent stake in Railtrans. By September 2014, Metrans was reportedly operating up to seven intermodal trains per day in both directions between the port of Hamburg and terminals in Prague and Ceska Trebova in the Czech Republic. In late March 2022, as a consequence of a
cyber attack upon the
IT systems of
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane that caused widespread disruption across Italy's railways, Metrans temporarily suspended all of its Italian operations. ==Rolling stock==