Rail vehicle valuation is traditionally performed by taking the book value of a vehicle, complemented with a deviation factor for technical characteristics and condition based on the experience of an appraiser. This process is costly and time-consuming for large and/or spread-out fleets and creates financial risks for all parties involved in the transaction through under- or overpricing. To develop more automated and digital approaches to enable more rapid and in-depth economic and financial analysis, insight is needed in the relationship between vehicle value and its determinants. This research aims to identify the main determinants of rolling stock value, and describes – in both economic and statistical terms – the dependence of value on these factors where possible. It reveals that the traditional linear approach to vehicle appraissal does not capture the non-linear effects found between various determinants and vehicle value for both locomotives and freight wagons.