[mschuster91]

> That is, if you happen to own a nice locomotive, and miraculously have unimpeded direct access to all railways, then this tool will be a useful planner.

By law, that already is the case across Europe - all you need is a commercial entity, a locomotive (or multiple) that support all the voltages and signalling/trackside security systems used on the route, carriages that are certified (freight cars usually are Europe-wide, passenger cars run under RIC) and operators that have "Streckenkunde" (=they know where signals, switches, street passes etc. are on a route).

There are a handful of people doing just that, in Germany Roland Sandkuhl / LokRapid has gotten incredibly famous after a TV show featuring him and his old-timer Class 219 locomotive has gone viral [1].

[1] https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/hallo_niedersachsen/R...

[johannes1234321]

> There are a handful of people doing just that, in Germany Roland Sandkuhl / LokRapid has gotten incredibly famous after a TV show featuring him and his old-timer Class 219 locomotive has gone viral [1].

Mind that in a legal sense he operates no EVU (Eisenbahnverkehrsunternehmen / railway operation company) but a locomotive rental business where he lends his locomotive including engineer (himself) to EVUs.

But small EVUs exist(-ed), like Rail 4U / Barbara Pirch with her E 94 locomotive, which unfortunately had an accident.

[pxeger1]

Don’t you also need to negotiate timetable slots?

[johannes1234321]

Nowadays you can "negotiate" relatively easily ad hoc on a website these days. Assuming there is free capacity. On "bug" cargo routes that typically works few hours advanced.

https://www.dbinfrago.com/web/schienennetz/leistungen/trasse...

[gsnedders]

If there is capacity, they are obliged to provide it on a non-discriminatory basis. If there isn't capacity, then it gets into questions of allocation (which still needs to be done in a fair and documented basis).