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CIT, a venerable organisation but a young association, marks its 20 year anniversary …
2004-2024: twenty years of existence for our association, with the mission of perpetuating since 1902 a specific form of cooperation within the rail sector.
The statutes of the association CIT entered into force in 2004, after adoption by the General Assembly in November 2003 in Bern.
On 1 January 2004, CIT became a freestanding association with the same mission statement and the same targets of legal credibility and competence in the new liberalised rail environment. The seat was already located in Bern, at the address we are still at today, Weltpoststrasse 20.
The Chairman of this new CIT was then Marcel Verslype (Chair of SNCB); the Secretary-General was Thomas Leimgrüber, former General Counsel of SBB-CFF-FFS. Both signed the initial statutes.
This new step coincided with the need to transpose and implement the new Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF), which was to enter into force in 2006.
During this initial period, CIT aimed to adapt its products to the future Convention and to train members in its implementation by the rail sector. Lately came CIT-OSJD cooperation, the use of infrastructure documents, and the AJC. Other later additions were the CIT website, CIT-News and the Berner Tage from 2006.
This 20th anniversary can be seen as one of the milestones in CIT’s development.
Upcoming challenges include participation in upcoming revisions of the COTIF, continuous support for members facing the changes in rail capacity management in Europe, and ongoing advisory services in digitalisation – and this list is far from complete.
We felt that twenty years of support by many contributors and constant care to work in the interest and cater to the needs of all our members deserved a few lines in this issue of CIT-News.