A fairly new train has recently been running on one of the most beautiful railway lines in Bavaria, from Freilassing via Bad Reichenhall to Berchtesgaden am Königssee. The train is called “Berchtesgadener Land”, it is a renovated car with new seats and more comfort. A Protestant and a Catholic pastor even blessed the train at a small celebration in the train station in Bad Reichenhall and wished them a good and safe journey. There was also a champagne shower by the local district administrator Bernhard Kern.
But God’s blessing alone is not enough for a better railway in Bavaria. This also requires the necessary money. And it looks pretty modest, as Matthias Birkmann from the EVG railway union recently found out during a visit to Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU). Birkmann is the managing director of EVG in Bavaria. He and his union would prefer more regional trains to run – including on closed routes that would have to be put back into operation.
But nothing is going on there, the railway unionist heard from the transport minister. “There is no money left for the reactivation of routes and more trains on the existing lines,” is Birkmann’s sober realization after the conversation with Bernreiter. A turnaround in traffic with less car and more rail traffic is “not possible like this,” says Birkmann. He demands more money from the federal government for regional routes and trains. Bernreiter, whose ministry has already calculated what a traffic turnaround in Bavaria would cost, is doing the same.
Extreme financial need
The result is a figure that seems astronomical in today’s times of crisis: the Free State would need a total of around 25 billion euros from the federal government in the next eight years. So more than three billion euros annually. That would be about twice what the federal government has planned for Bavaria so far. You have to know that the federal government has been giving the federal states money for decades, with which they can order and co-finance regional train connections from Deutsche Bahn (DB) and other railway companies – these are the so-called regionalization funds. The regional trains and S-Bahn trains could not be paid for with ticket sales alone.
Local rail transport is a subsidized operation. A subsidized operation that no one questions. Without S-Bahn and regional trains there would be a gridlock, not to mention the environmental damage caused by even more cars on the streets. The only question is: How good should local rail transport be? And should the offer be expanded?
Over the years, the state-owned DB and private railway companies have bought new trains or modernized old cars for a lot of money. Also with financial help from the Free State from the regionalization funds. But great trains make little sense if they are traveling on sometimes dilapidated tracks and in many places are only allowed to run slowly or not at all. The DB has neglected the maintenance and rehabilitation of regional route networks, also because the federal government gives too little money.
The calculation of the Bavarian Ministry of Transport looks like this: In order to maintain the current status of regional trains and S-Bahn trains, “to be able to implement measures that have already been decided and to be able to expand the transport offer in accordance with the political objectives”, one would need the said around 25 from 2023 to 2030 inclusive billion euros from the federal government. Increased prices for energy, for example, have already been taken into account.
The other federal states are also asking for more money
The Federal Government and its Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) should not be particularly happy about this bill. The other federal states are also demanding more money. And this at a time when the consequences of the pandemic and the Russian war against Ukraine are also having a massive impact on the German state and are costing a lot of money. But better local public transport (ÖPNV) for more environmental and climate protection does not exist for nothing. The federal and state governments are working together with the associations of cities, districts and municipalities on an “expansion and modernization pact” for public transport.
According to the Bavarian Ministry of Transport, the 16 federal states are “jointly demanding a significant and permanent increase in regionalization funds from the federal government”. The Berlin traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP with Transport Minister Wissing should therefore close the construction sites left behind by Wissing’s predecessors from the ranks of the CSU, Andreas Scheuer and Alexander Dobrindt. Under Scheuer and Dobrindt and their predecessors, many regional rail networks were neglected.
The corona pandemic was added to this evil. In the meantime, the railway has lost many passengers and ticket sales, especially in regional traffic. The Free State received 838.7 million euros in compensation from the federal government so that regional trains and S-Bahn trains could continue to run. And the current nine-euro ticket for local transport leads to even less revenue. For this, the Free State will receive 529.2 million euros from the federal government as compensation. Makes a total of almost 1.5 billion euros.
A “Rail Master Plan” is needed
But this amount is not enough, explains Bavaria’s Ministry of Transport under the head of department Bernreiter, who has been in office since February, and who speaks more plainly than his predecessor Kerstin Schreyer (CSU). Here, too, the ministry is calling on the federal government to ensure “complete compensation for the disadvantages” and “to provide sufficient funds”. However, Bernreiter’s Berlin colleague Wissing cannot print the money himself. And Wissing’s party friend, Federal Minister of Finance and FDP leader Christian Lindner, wants to incur significantly less debt from next year. That sounds like squaring the circle.
Bavaria’s rail union boss Birkmann says the current state of the rail network is “quite simply catastrophic. We have always warned that the network is underfunded.” The money isn’t enough either way. A cross-legislative and cross-party “Rail Master Plan” is finally needed. Birkmann compares the current railway policy with an old road on which the potholes from the winter are closed every summer. “In the end you don’t have a new road, just a patchwork quilt of asphalt that feels like cobblestones.”