Klaus-Dieter Josel has come up with a few numbers for his last day at work and his last press conference. For 21 years he was the representative of Deutsche Bahn in Bavaria and was therefore the top railway boss in this country. 21 years in which Josel, by his own count, has experienced three DB CEOs, nine Bavarian transport ministers and seven federal transport ministers, “including three from Bavaria”. Josel doesn’t say anything about it, but many of those listed came and went, not all of them left deep footprints. Only he himself was somehow always there.
Until this Thursday. With Josel, 63 years old, a constant in Bavarian railway policy is retiring; Evil tongues also claim that this is one of the few constants that rail policy has at all. “I am the face of the railway,” says Josel, actually appearing free of irony and vanity. He looks back on a beautiful, “overall exciting, at times challenging time.” Words of thanks followed on Thursday from Berlin, among others: DB CEO Richard Lutz praised Josel’s “tireless commitment to strong rail.”
When asked, Josel himself exhibits a “basic calmness”. He has also been doing relaxation training since a young age. One can assume that both were and are helpful in his job: you can manage 21 years as a railway manager or they can manage you. Because the DB is not a normal railway company. It is the top dog on the market – and is responsible for large parts of the rail infrastructure and ensuring that all trains can run. But in this regard, the company continues to provide cause for despair. The overdue renovation of the network and the associated failures, rail replacement services and delays alone are likely to affect rail travel for years to come.
Seen in this way, it was part of Josel’s job profile to always show his face whenever there was a problem somewhere: snow chaos here, problems with the construction of the second Munich S-Bahn main line there, protests against the Brennern north access there, to name just a few examples from more recent times. Most recently, Josel was able to listen to the anger of freight railway companies who fear long detours and losses due to the announced construction work. Sometimes the criticism was rightly so, sometimes wrongly and often due to circumstances that the DB can only partially help with, but which they still have on their backs. When it comes to infrastructure, politics is the primary concern. Deutsche Bahn plans and builds. As long as she gets the money.
Josel also points out on his last day at work that the railway can only be as good as the conditions allow. And that he sometimes “growled inside” when political speeches were made on the back of the train. But you shouldn’t take something like that personally. “We can only create large rail projects with active political support.” This is also why some things could be further than they actually are. Josel thinks of the Munich-Mühldorf-Burghausen/Freilassing line, which is to be completely electrified and partly expanded to double track. Completion: expected mid-2030s. Recent changes in the law have set the project back, says Josel. “That’s not good,” put it diplomatically.
The successor previously headed the Munich S-Bahn
The Heidelberg native actually has a background in economics. The economist worked on transport issues at the Munich Ifo Institute before moving to Deutsche Bahn in 1990. In 2003 he took over the newly created job of corporate representative for Bavaria as part of the railway reform. His term of office included, among other things, the introduction of the Bayern Ticket, the expansion of the high-speed line between Munich, Nuremberg and Berlin and the electrification of the tracks to Lindau – but also the serious rail accidents in Bad Aibling in 2016 and near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2022. And then of course there is the renovation backlog. In order to get to grips with this, Deutsche Bahn will repeatedly close important routes completely for months in the coming years. Josel defends this, there is no other way. “In recent years, too little money has flowed into the infrastructure.”
Someone else will have to deal with the consequences in the future. Heiko Büttner has previously been in charge of the Munich S-Bahn and is already suffering a lot: the old and new main lines regularly cause problems. Would he also recommend relaxation training to his successor? “He,” says Josel and smiles, “knows what he’s getting himself into.” He himself promised his colleagues that he would “not write letters to the editor” when he retired.