Nurminen Logistics, the Helsinki-listed rail freight and terminal operator founded in 1886, says the block train service it plans to run between Spain and Sweden will also take in Portugal. In its business review for July–September 2026, published on 22 October, the company said it had “registered a subsidiary in Barcelona for the purpose of launching the service early next year”, and added: “In our soon-to-be-launched Spanish traffic, the market area also covers Portugal.” That one sentence is, so far, the only detail on Portugal. It nonetheless marks the first time a Nordic rail operator has put Portuguese shippers inside the stated catchment of a scheduled train to the Nordics.
The model: Italy to Sweden, twice a week
The Spanish line is meant to copy a service Nurminen started earlier this year between the Castelguelfo terminal near Parma, in northern Italy, and the Frövi terminal in Örebro County, central Sweden. According to a company release of 7 September, the train takes roughly two and a half to three days on the rail leg, and a second weekly departure was added from the first week of October. Nurminen also handles first- and last-mile road haulage, terminal operations and transport documents, and has widened the wagon fleet to take more container types and dangerous goods. The Q3 review says the market area for those trains covers all of Italy and its ports, as well as Norway and Finland in addition to Sweden.
Timing depends on Spanish track work
The launch date is not fixed. In its half-year report of 24 July, Nurminen said preparations, “including customer acquisition, are well advanced” and that the aim was to start “in the early part of the first quarter of 2027”. It also said the final schedule “depends on the completion of track upgrades in Spain up to the French border”, as Spain moves that corridor to standard European gauge. On 22 October the company said the measures were “progressing according to plan”. It has not published the Spanish origin terminal, the Swedish destination, the frequency or prices.
What it could mean for Portuguese shippers
Nurminen has not said how Portuguese cargo would reach the train. Portugal’s own rail network also uses the Iberian gauge, so the most likely route at the start would be by road to a Spanish terminal, which is the kind of first-mile leg Nurminen already arranges in Italy. That remains an inference, not a company statement. If the service runs, it would give exporters in northern and central Portugal a scheduled rail option to Sweden, and onward to Norway and Finland, alongside the trucks and short-sea shipping that carry most of that freight now. Nurminen’s own case for rail is cost and emissions. “Low-emission road transport is not feasible over long distances,” the Q3 review says, pointing to driver shortages, fuel costs and road tolls.
The company is also candid about the commercial challenge. It says growth “requires determined commercial work, improving the load balance on southbound routes”. Northbound trains from southern Europe fill more easily than southbound ones. For Iberian shippers that matters both ways: plenty of northbound demand helps a new service survive, while Portuguese importers of Nordic goods, such as paper, wood products and steel, could help fill the return leg.
Why a Finnish operator is looking south
Nurminen’s turn towards southern Europe is partly forced. Its Q3 review says rail tariff increases on the Russian side cut volumes on routes into Finland sharply. Group net sales still rose 10.4% to €26.3 million in the quarter (€23.8 million a year earlier), helped by the Italy service and the Baltics, and international rail traffic grew 66% year on year to about a third of group sales. Profitability fell, however. Comparable EBITA was €1.8 million against €3.8 million, the quarter ended with a net loss of €3.2 million, partly because of the early repayment of a €12 million loan at its North Rail unit, and headcount fell from 184 to 163. Full-year guidance is unchanged: net sales at or slightly below 2025, and comparable operating profit “significantly lower”. The Iberian launch is therefore an investment by a company under margin pressure, not by one with spare cash.
What to watch
The things to watch are the announcement of terminals and a firm start date, any named Portuguese customers or forwarding partners, and progress on the Spanish gauge works that the launch depends on. Nurminen publishes its full-year results in early 2027. Nordic companies already operating in Portugal are listed in the directory of Nordic companies in Portugal, and Portuguese exporters selling into the region are in the directory of Portuguese companies in the Nordics.
Sources: Nurminen Logistics, Business Review Q3 2026 (22 October 2026); Nurminen Logistics, Half-Year Financial Report January–June 2026 (24 July 2026); Nurminen Logistics, Sweden–Italy capacity release (7 September 2026).