Construction sites: Union sees many difficult years for rail customers

The Union agrees with rail customers for further difficult years. “A real trend reversal will take many years,” said Union faction vice Ulrich Lange (CSU) of the German Press Agency with a view to the ailing rail network. “For rail customers, this means that they will still have to expect many construction sites in the coming years. And construction sites mean cuts in punctuality.” The infrastructure division Infrago is asked to set up a clever tree management and to ensure that the consequences for customers are limited as much as possible.

Last year, only 62.5 percent of long -distance trains were on time for Deutsche Bahn. The rail network is ailing. Many highly loaded routes are to be fundamentally renovated in the coming years. That costs many billions of euros. The Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim started last year.

The railway sees a “trend reversal” as it announced for an infrago report on the rail network for a state report presented last week. The report shows a school grade of 3.0 for the entire rail network. This means that the overall condition has not deteriorated for the first time since the introduction of this grading system in 2021. The reason for this is high investments that the traffic light coalition had launched.

The CSU politician Lange said with a view to the report: “One cannot speak of a trend reversal.” At most, the further decay of the infrastructure was stopped. The renovation of the Riedbahn does not regard the statements of the railway and the executive Minister of Transport Volker Wissing (independent) for a long time. “On the one hand, the costs rose by 200 million euros. On the other hand, there has been a repair of the route, but no general renovation, because the bridges on the track have not been renovated, and there was no digitization.”

For a long time as a parliamentary group is responsible for traffic and was a member of the traffic group in the coalition negotiations of the CDU, CSU and SPD.

Additional billions for the train

In their coalition agreement, the CDU, CSU and SPD have announced a railway infrastructure fund. “It is about an adequate, over-year financing of renovation and new construction projects that does not depend on every single financial year,” said Lange.

The fund should be fed from the income that is achieved by the route prices – these are fees for the use of the rail network, a kind of rail toll – as well as funds from the special fund for the infrastructure. “We are talking to the fund over a term of twelve years and an amount in the three -digit billion dollar sector,” said Lange.

Bundestag and the Federal Council had decided to have a special fund of 500 billion euros. Among other things, this should be paid for the repair of the dilapidated infrastructure – i.e. railway lines, bridges, energy networks, streets or schools. 100 billion euros are to be used for climate protection and the climate -friendly conversion of the economy. The countries get 100 billion euros from the pot.