The adoption of an innovative and progressive approach towards servitization by the European rolling stock manufacturing industry offers a new avenue for sustaining and enhancing the competitiveness of this industry. Servitization in rail vehicle manufacturing is not only being pushed by technological progress but also by a series of current trends encompassing demand-side and regulatory changes affecting the entire sector. This paper discusses these trends and identifies possible impacts and challenges in the adoption of service-oriented businesses by this manufacturing segment. The paper calls attention to the fact that, despite a marked interest from the industry, the issue has been covered by scientific literature only in the form of case studies, but there is a gap in the field regarding academic- and theoretical-oriented approaches that take into account the particularities of the industry.