Do good and talk about it – after focusing on the first part during its first year, the OpenRail Association is now catching up on the second. Following this, our Chair, Jochen Decker (SBB), and Vice-Chair, Nicole Göbel (DB), delivered a keynote at the Hamburg IT Strategy Days 2025, one of Europe’s largest events for CIOs and IT decision-makers.

At FOSS Backstage 2025, Cornelius gave a talk about the OpenRail Association. FOSS Backstage is one of the leading conferences exploring what happens behind the scenes of open source, covering topics like community, governance, management, and compliance. It has taken place every March in Berlin since 2018.

FOSDEM is Europe’s largest gathering of Free and Open Source Software developers and enthusiasts, with thousands of people attending and hundreds of talks taking place each year. For the third time in a row, there will be a Railways and Open Transport devroom. Proposals for presentations are possible until 1 December 2024.

The OpenRail Association is pleased to announce the membership of three new organisations: Infrabel from Belgium, Entur from Norway, and the Switzerland-registered Flatland Association. Their addition will enhance OpenRail’s diversity and contribute to the collaborative culture we are establishing in the railway and transportation sector.

A half year after the official launch of the OpenRail Association, five Open Source projects have already become part of the organization. Even after this short time, two of these projects - one from the SNCF, the other from the SBB - have already started to collaborate directly. This collaboration increases the efficiency of both developments and creates synergies that benefit both projects and, ultimately, their customers. This collaboration was made possible thanks to the OpenRail Association.

Cornelius Schumacher, chair of the Technical Committee of the OpenRail Association, was a guest at the Open Transport Meetup to present the OpenRail Association. He talked about how the organization operates, looking back at the first couple of months since its formal foundation in January 2024, about the first projects, which were onboarded, and what the OpenRail Association strives for in the future. See the slides to get an impression of the presentation.

For the second time, team members of the OpenRail Association have coordinated the Railways and Open Transport devroom at FOSDEM. For this 4-hours track we chose 10 presentations by experts with diverse backgrounds from the large amount of submissions.

While most talks at FOSDEM circulated around programming, cloud, or system administration topics, we experienced an overwhelming interest in railways and transportation. Our devroom was constantly overcrowded with around 100 participants, with many interested people still standing outside who couldn’t get in the room any more.

Today, the OpenRail Association officially launched its activities with its first Board of Directors meeting held in Paris and its incorporation as a Belgian non-profit organization. This important milestone marks a major step in our mission to provide a neutral platform for the collaborative development of Open Source software within the railway sector. By combining resources and expertise, we aim to enhance efficiency, quality, and interoperability across the industry.