There is a need to cut CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions, especially given the European Union’s legal obligation to become climate neutral by 2050. Shifting freight from road to rail significantly reduces emissions per ton-kilometre, but the share of transported tonne-kilometres on road has increased since 2012 in the EU-27 whilst the share of rail freight transport (and inland waterways) has decreased. An important prerequisite for a modal shift is the reliability of rail transport. Specifically, train unreliability affects the demand for rail transport, as Halse et al. (2019) show in their analysis of freight transport in Norway. In turn, a lower freight train demand – and therefore a lower line capacity utilisation – implies that disruptions have smaller consequences and thus the reliability of the rail system may to some extent recover. Knowledge on the dynamics between rail unreliability and demand can aid decision-making, e.g., decisions that may influence the equilibrium level of rail freight demand. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the dynamics between freight train unreliability and demand. The aim is to provide insights into how shocks to the system, such as line capacity investments and timetable measures (e.g., platooning, reduced speed heterogeneity, changes in the traffic pattern of passenger trains), may generate new freight train unreliability and demand levels.