Oh, how nice it could be to travel through Bavaria by train. There are so many great plans for a better track. The routes to Schliersee, to Tegernsee, to Lenggries and other lines are finally to be electrified will. More and more stations will, according to the intention, with the program “Babsi 21” (many men proclaimed this title) modernized. Several single-track routes should have a second track to get. The state government and Deutsche Bahn have a lot planned in the greater Munich area westin the south and in northeast. And so on.
The crux of the matter: Many individual ideas do not result in a coherent overall concept. Which brings us to Bavaria’s long-term governing party, the CSU, and the Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH). The financial controllers of the Free State have already Annual Report 2019 Prime Minister Markus Söder’s team was severely reprimanded for their inaction. Noisy Law the government would have to submit a local rail transport plan to the state parliament every two years; as a “central strategic instrument for planning, organizing and securing” regional train traffic. But the last plan of this kind dates back to 2005.
The new Bavarian Minister of Transport, Christian Bernreiter (CSU), cannot personally do anything for the plight of the railways in Bavaria. He has only been in office since February.
(Photo: Matthias Balk/dpa)
“The fact that the state government has not developed this plan for 14 years is a serious oversight,” the ORH criticized in 2019. The report at the time stated that the responsible ministry had announced that it would of course comply with the request for “the creation of an up-to-date local rail transport plan”. But three years later there is still no overall concept. Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU) can’t do much about it personally, he’s only been in office since February. It is said of the new minister that he first wants to know how much money will come from the federal government for local public transport in Bavaria in the future. One of the many problems: The second main route for the S-Bahn in Munich is likely to be several billion euros more expensive than planned. This money is then missing somewhere else.
What the federal government pays the states for rail has been an ongoing issue for decades. Or even better, a constant argument. It was never any different when the CSU in Berlin provided the Federal Minister of Transport, from 2009 to 2021 with Peter Ramsauer, Alexander Dobrindt, Christian Schmidt and Andreas Scheuer. The state parliament opposition sees the reference to the federal government as an excuse. MP Markus Büchler from the Greens accuses Söder’s government of “muddling through”. One shouldn’t be surprised at the state of the railways in Bavaria.
Sad but true: Much of what the ORH noted in its 2019 annual report is more relevant today than ever. In their report, the financial controllers referred to the last Bavarian local rail transport plan for the years 2003 to 2005. The “main causes of delays” in regional trains were documented in it. These were problems with the rail network, such as “defects in the track superstructure, switches or signal faults”. In addition, “construction and maintenance work” would have affected train traffic.
The investment backlog is almost 50 billion euros
Past? No, present! After the train accident a month ago near Garmisch-Partenkirchen with five dead and many injured, the state-owned company Deutsche Bahn (DB) set up a number of new slow-moving stations to be particularly careful due to defects in the superstructure. the nationwide, The officially documented investment backlog at Deutsche Bahn is almost 50 billion euros. This is what it says in a report from March 2022 on the current contract between the railways and the federal government about money for the rail network.
Particularly noteworthy: Between 2008/2009 and 2019, the backlog in the renovation of bridges, tracks, points and tunnels increased by more than ten billion euros. From 2009 to 2021, the CSU provided the Federal Minister of Transport (before that, the SPD had been there for more than ten years). So the problems with the railways in Bavaria, as far as the CSU is concerned, are to a certain extent home-made. In addition to the lack of money and the refurbishment backlog, there is also the lack of a concept.
In spring 2019, the state parliament approved motions by the Free Voters and the Greens that the state government should update and present the local rail transport plan. At the time, MP Hans Friedl from the CSU coalition partner Freie Wahler described it as unacceptable that the last local rail transport plan to date dates from 2005. It is now “high time” for an update.
The Green MP Büchler, in turn, reminded the CSU that the obligation to present an overall concept in the Bavarian Local Transport Act dates back to the 1990s. The CSU had passed this law itself with its then sole majority in the state parliament. With good reason, as Büchler found. With an overall plan, one can estimate which funds and measures are necessary to advance the railways in Bavaria.
In 2016 there were “450 disruptions per day”.
The Ministry of Transport then announced that the state government wanted to adopt such a plan in autumn 2019. But nothing came of it. Then in 2020 came the coronavirus. “Due to the pandemic”, the priorities had shifted, the Ministry of Transport informed the state parliament in 2021. In the future, the local transport plan will be “updated every two years”. It’s now 2022, and the Greens fear the government may want to forego an overall plan altogether.
The Bavarian Ministry of Transport states that the local transport plan “primarily serves traffic planning” and not “the state of maintenance of the rail infrastructure”, for which the federal government is usually responsible. The ORH, on the other hand, explained very clearly in its 2019 annual report why such a plan was essential. The Court of Auditors complained that in the most recent plan from 2005, the reasons for the delays in regional trains and S-Bahn trains were neither systematically analyzed nor were “solution approaches” identified. To underpin its criticism, the ORH referred to figures from 2016. There were an average of “450 disruptions per day” in local rail transport in Bavaria. And there are still numerous “infrastructure-related disruptions”.
The Court of Auditors therefore recommended that the state government “finally systematically analyze the many disruptions and make suggestions for their elimination and use every opportunity to exert influence so that the infrastructure is adequately maintained”. That’s three years ago now. A lot has happened in the meantime, there are lots of great new plans. Among them, from Scheuer’s time as Federal Transport Minister, the draft for a comprehensive expansion of the rail network.
The result is a “Germany clock” that should make train travel easier with better connections when changing trains. In the draft are numerous measures also in Bavaria called. For example, the expansion of the Munich – Ingolstadt route for almost 1.5 billion euros, so that there is more space for more regional and long-distance trains. The route from Munich to Regensburg could be extended for almost 1.4 billion euros. The draft contains pages and pages of often expensive ideas for Bavaria, for all parts of the country: Franconia, Swabia, the Upper Palatinate, Lower and Upper Bavaria. And it’s not the only plans.
In addition to “Babsi21”, the Bavarian Ministry of Transport refers, among other things, to its “Rail Electric Mobility Strategy” and its program to expand the Nuremberg S-Bahn. However, an overall concept is still missing. And there is also a lack of enough money for a better railway in Bavaria.