The anamnesis had a certain Dr. Markus Söder made it in the morning, in a rather laconic way: “Rail takes forever,” said the Bavarian Prime Minister when the SZ sustainability summit was about why things weren’t moving faster with the shifting of traffic to rail. Endless, so the CSU politician was alluding to the long construction and planning times for new routes, not so much to the travel times of the trains. Both are of course dependent on each other: faster connections require more modern routes. And they are still missing in many places. Even after four CSU transport ministers in a row.
From the point of view of many travelers, the train is still too slow, even on the so-called race tracks. The ICE takes more than six hours from Hamburg to Munich. There are only four to five from Munich to Berlin, but in France the TGV can cover the similarly long route from Paris to Marseille in three.
Railway boss Richard Lutz can also answer disarmingly honest.
(Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa)
Richard Lutz’s job is to make the railway more attractive. The 57-year-old comes from a family of railway workers and studied business administration. So it was almost logical that he had a career with the railway. He has been leading the state-owned company since 2017. But what does he say about Söder and his diagnosis? Lutz makes it short when he is asked about it in the discussion on the subject of mobility. He says, “Yes, that’s right.” Planning and approval processes would sometimes take forever. With this disarmingly honest answer, the railway boss elegantly plays the ball back. After all, the state-owned company cannot push through its projects on its own. For that he needs politicians – and also the citizens, who in many places are resisting new building projects.
From the point of view of the rail boss, however, one thing is clear: when it comes to reducing emissions, there is hardly a way around his company. “A climate change will not take place without a traffic turnaround,” says Lutz. The railway is the only transport sector that has reduced its emissions in the past 30 years and not increased them. In contrast to cars, which are only just getting started, rail trains have been running electrically for decades. 60 percent of rail traffic is electrified, reports Lutz proudly.
Tesla is more sustainable than the train, says car expert Dudenhöffer
Car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, who is connected from home, listened carefully to the railway boss. However, he was not enthusiastic about the lecture. “This promotional video was nice to hear,” he says in the direction of the railway boss. 60 percent electric, all well and good. The only difference is that the electric car manufacturer Tesla is 100 percent electric. So why more trains – and not: more cars?
Dudenhöffer is gifted at pouring his thoughts into short and often provocative sentences, which is one of the reasons why he is probably the most popular conversation partner in Germany when it comes to four wheels. He also says one of these classic Dudenhöffer sentences in the direction of Lutz: “Tesla is more sustainable than the railroad.”
However, nobody in the group would agree with this conclusion, not even Navina Pernsteiner, who herself co-founded a company for electric cars. Sono Motors is the name of their company based in Munich. Their electric car “Sion” can not only charge electricity from the socket, but thanks to a number of solar cells in the body, it can also fill up with solar energy without a cable connection. After all, this should bring an average range of 112 kilometers per week and thus enable a kind of automotive self-sufficiency, at least in the city. “A supplement that is certainly intelligent,” says car specialist Dudenhöffer. But the solution to all problems is not something like that in Germany with its comparatively few hours of sunshine.
Andreas Schön from the General German Bicycle Club (ADFC), on the other hand, is not only concerned with the question of where the energy comes from. Rather, he is concerned with the question of which mode of transport should have priority in the future. And he sees a need for action here for his favorite means of transport. People still think about cars in particular. You can see that from the fact that many more people in the authorities are busy planning new roads than planning new cycle paths.
Finally, Navina Pernsteiner, the founder of electric cars, has the floor again. And she says something that everyone in the group would probably sign. It’s not about which mode of transport is the best. “It’s about finding common solutions.”