Schrödinger’s cat helps to get closer to what will be – or will not be – in Mühldorf: the famous thought experiment by Erwin Schrödinger, which probably best describes quantum physics, which is so strenuous for the layman. Because with this it behaves very simply like with a cat that you lock in a box. Decaying atomic nuclei also occur in the experiment, but the most important thing is the condition of the cat: it is alive and dead at the same time throughout the whole thing – at least as long as nobody lifts the lid of the box and looks.
And so back to Mühldorf, more precisely: to the local railway network. There, too, two conditions are superimposed, which of course are only mutually exclusive for the common layman. From 2025, trains with fuel cells are to commute in Mühldorf’s “Linen Star” and lead Bavaria into a new era of mobility. The state government regards such hydrogen trains as a “building block for climate-neutral local rail passenger transport”, as can be read in a statement from last year. At the moment, however, the building block seems to be in said box.
On the one hand, according to a publication in the EU Official Journal from February, the order to deliver hydrogen to Mühldorf was not awarded – because the transport authority, the Bavarian Railway Company (BEG), responsible for regional transport, ordered “that the underlying award procedure Linienstern Mühldorf 2025 + is dormant indefinitely”. On the other hand, the BEG does not want to confirm this on request: It is said that no information can be given about an ongoing procedure. You are obligated to confidentiality.
An award that runs and rests as long as nobody provides information about it – Schrödinger could hardly have imagined it better. Even asking the BEG how the apparent contradiction is to be resolved does not provide any clarification for the layperson. But that may also be due to the fact that quantum mechanics is nothing compared to Bavarian railway policy. In Mühldorf the cat is not only alive and dead, but also too late. According to the BEG website, the award procedure should be completed in December 2021.