Originally Posted by
ofto
Germany:
Berlin Night Express as mentioned, runs Berlin - Malmö by ferry. SJ[Swedish Railways] operate the Swedish portion, the German part is private.
As I mentioned, SJ has lost interest in this route and Veolia are taking over the Swedish part.
Originally Posted by
ofto
Sweden:
DSB First Malmö - Gothenburg - Copenhagen, was run under a rare intercity francise by Danish Railways and First (the UK coach operator). Though, I believe, First was recently kicked out of this group, so it's no longer really private.
Veolia took over the Swedish part a couple of weeks ago. The Danish part will be run as DSB Øresund (without First). This comes after a major political scandal in Denmark over illegal state aid via DSB to DSBFirst.
But the Øresund trains really fall into the category of government-tendered lines that there must be hundreds of examples of around Europe. In fact, in Sweden NO traffic of this kind is run by SJ anymore, as SJ has made the business decision not to bid on it.