Metronom Eisenbahngesellschaft
Metronom Eisenbahngesellschaft mbH is a German non-state-owned railway company based in Uelzen, Lower Saxony since December 2005. The company is exclusively for passenger transport and operates the lines Hamburg-Bremen, Hamburg-Uelzen-Hanover-Göttingen, and Hamburg-Cuxhaven. The company brand is often rendered in lower case as metronom. Train runs in timetables are abbreviated officially ME for trains running express and MEr (Metronom regional) for trains stopping everywhere.
History
At the end of the 1990s, the three participating States of Germany—Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Bremen—agreed to replace Regional-Express services on the routes between Hamburg and Bremen and Hamburg-Uelzen operated by DB Regio with their own railway company.
The company was founded in February 2002 under the name of MetroRail. The ownership structure has remained unchanged and consists of three companies that represent the individual states and were based almost exclusively in the public domain. Specifically, these are the NiedersachsenBahn GmbH (69.9%), the BeNEX GmbH (25.1%) and the Bremer Straßenbahn AG (5.0%). The NiedersachsenBahn GmbH acts as an operating company and is a union of the railways Osthannoverschen AG (OHE) (60%), based in Celle and the railways and transport companies Elbe-Weser GmbH (Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser) (40%) of Zeven.
