Locomore

Updated: August 2026 – Some brands you can no longer spot but should still know. Locomore is one: a crowdfunded long-distance train that went insolvent after a few months, kept running under someone else’s management, was sold through a third-party platform, and finally disappeared altogether. This short story contains every layer that this section otherwise has to painstakingly untangle.

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A train nobody had commissioned

German long-distance rail works differently from local service, and that difference is the key to understanding this case. In local service, a commissioning authority tenders out services, pays for them, and sets the timetable and often the livery too. In long-distance rail there’s none of that: anyone who wants to run there buys a path, puts a train on it, and lives off what the passengers pay. The legal framework for this is set at European level and open to any licensed operator – hence the term open access.

That’s exactly where Locomore came in. The idea: its own axis with a distinctive product, financed not by investors but through a public campaign in which many individuals took part with small contributions. The train wasn’t meant to stand out on price alone, but through a different feel to travelling: themed coaches, a clearly recognisable look, a deliberately narrow offer instead of a network.

Who actually ran trains under this name?

The honest answer is: several, one after another – and never the brand itself. From the very start, operations lay with a partner company holding its own licence, because a licence as a railway operator isn’t something you pick up on the side. It requires safety management, staff, workshop access and evidence that a young sales company can’t build up in a few months.

After the insolvency, this separation became even clearer. A foreign operator continued the service – in Germany through Leo Express Global as the company, with Leo Express as its origin. Tickets were sold through the platform of FlixTrain. Which meant the train was: a brand from Germany, an operator from Czechia, sales run by a third company, and a locomotive belonging to a fourth.

What the train looked like – and why

Four layers in a single train

This table is the real reason this page exists. No other German case shows so compactly that a train isn’t one company, but a construction made up of several. Anyone who has once seen through this structure will be considerably more careful with other services before saying “that’s a train run by …”.

Where the train could be seen

The route followed a classic north–south axis with few stops in major cities. Anyone wanting to photograph it at the time found the best opportunities at terminal and hub stations, because the hauling locomotive was accessible there and the train stood long enough. Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof and Berlin Hauptbahnhof marked the ends, with intermediate stops at major hubs such as Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in between.

The exact stops were adjusted several times over the short operating period – another reason why a sighting without a date isn’t much help. Out on the open line, by contrast, the train was hardly distinguishable from other loco-hauled passenger trains unless you looked at the coaches in detail. Anyone searching through old folders today should therefore filter for station shots first and only then for line shots; the hit rate is considerably higher. How to build up such an archive systematically is described in the guide to the sighting log.

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How reliable is an old sighting?

What the case tells you about the market

The difference between this model and commissioned local service is described in more detail in the article local versus long-distance service – it also explains why operator changes happen in an orderly way in local service and abruptly in long-distance rail.

Conclusion

Locomore is no longer a spotting target today, but a textbook case. The name was on the coaches, someone else ran the train, a third party sold the tickets, and the locomotive again belonged to someone else. This exact splitting-up is the normal case in the European rail system – it just rarely comes together this briefly and this clearly as it does here.

Anyone holding photos from this period should organise them while the date and circumstances can still be reconstructed. In ten years that will be far harder, and the vehicles themselves will long since be running elsewhere.

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