The transport politicians actually wanted to talk about Stuttgart 21 on Wednesday morning. There are good reasons for this. The giga construction project will be more expensive than planned, will arrive later than planned – and could still become more expensive and still come later. They thought they could ask the responsible railway board member Berthold Huber and invite him to a special meeting at the crack of dawn.
When he leaves the meeting room after two hours together with the deputy chairman of the Union faction, Ulrich Lange, the topic is something completely different. Whether Huber has already MirrorLange asks whether he has read the report. The railway board member replies in the negative. Lange asks whether it is true that the railway is planning to cancel long-distance trains, especially in eastern Germany. Huber raises his eyebrows. “There are also days when I am glad to be the board member for infrastructure and not for long-distance transport,” says Huber.
A few hours later, long-distance transport executive Michael Peterson speaks out – and denies the report of the Mirror“There are currently no concrete plans to cancel the long-distance connections mentioned,” says Peterson. Planning for the 2025 timetable has been completed since April, and the document cited in the media report is from February. “This timetable does not currently foresee any of the service cuts mentioned.”
The track access pricing system has gotten out of hand
Which doesn’t mean that Peterson doesn’t still have a problem. At least he doesn’t have it alone. The manager shares it with DB Cargo board member Sigrid Nikutta and several hundred small to medium-sized freight railway bosses. The problem is track access prices.
All companies that want to use the German rail network have to pay a fee of a few euros per kilometer. This is based on the so-called “polluter pays principle”: whoever causes wear and tear on the tracks should pay for it. At the same time, however, the federal government is pumping the railways full of new equity. In order for this to be debt-neutral, it also wants more returns in return, which means more interest is due. And the railways also get this money through track access charges.
The system has long since gotten out of control. Next year, track access charges for long-distance traffic are set to rise by 17.7 percent and for freight traffic by 16.2 percent. That equates to 52 cents more per kilometer and it adds up. Things are looking even worse for the following year, 2026: Costs at DB Infrago, the public-interest-oriented railway subsidiary that operates the network and collects the rail tolls, are exploding. Price increases for the railway companies of up to 50 percent are on the table. It is no wonder that a number of them are already suing against the first, already fixed increase for 2025 – including DB Infrago itself.
One thing is clear: if the increases come as announced, the transport of goods and citizens by rail will become significantly more expensive in the coming years. In order not to be left with the costs, the companies must pass the prices on to customers or cancel unprofitable trips. “Depending on the level of the additional costs, we will be forced to review the scope of our timetable offerings nationwide,” admits Peterson. According to a railway spokeswoman, an increase in ticket prices is “unavoidable” if the planned increases actually come about.
Another argument in favor of higher ticket prices is that numerous German politicians immediately rejected the alleged and now denied rail plans. Green Party leader Omid Nouripour, for example, described them as “unacceptable.” “We will do everything we can together with the transport minister to ensure that this does not happen,” he said. He is still in China, but according to a ministry spokesman, he sees things the same way: the federal government has an interest in “ensuring that no region is left behind.” Rising ticket prices are not exactly popular either – but in this case they are probably the lesser evil.