If a loyal train driver switches to a car after 42 years, something must have broken. Something that can’t be repaired as easily as a broken train door. For almost half a century, a man from Weilheim commuted to work in Munich every day and forgave the train for delays and cancellations. But now the commuter is fed up with the unreliability and is switching to a car. Goodbye forever?
The episode, told by Norbert Moy from the Pro Bahn passenger association, symbolizes the discontent among train passengers in Werdenfelser Land. “Even the most die-hard people lose patience,” says Moy. Trust in the railway is dwindling.
The massive snowfall more than two weeks ago hit train drivers between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Munich particularly hard. The white masses covered the tracks like a heavy blanket, caused trees to collapse and caused widespread overhead power lines to disable. The train was caught off guard. There was no train running in the Werdenfels network for a good week, and even after that, operations only got off to a slow start. Parts of the route are closed, trains are in the workshop, trips are canceled. The original winter timetable has been thinned out, initially until January 7th. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn (DB) could not say on Monday exactly when the trains between Munich and Garmisch would run normally again. But what is normal on this network?
Norbert Moy laughs when you reach him on his cell phone these days. It’s not a happy laugh, but a desperate one. “I wouldn’t have dreamed that it could get any worse,” says the man from Weilheim, who as a rail customer is not only personally affected, but also speaks for fellow sufferers as a representative of the Pro Bahn passenger association in the region. Moy calls the condition of the Werdenfelsbahn a “pretty catastrophe”, and not just since the snow chaos. “Many have now turned their backs on the railways.”
In fact, the largely single-track rail network between Munich and the edge of the Alps has been considered a problem for years. After a regional train derailed shortly after leaving Garmisch-Partenkirchen on June 3, 2022 and five people died, the railway finally promised improvement. It rolled out a renovation program worth more than 100 million euros for the partly dilapidated routes. Defective concrete sleepers led to the accident.
But the construction work keeps getting delayed and the frustration grows with every canceled train. The railway line between Garmisch and Mittenwald, for example, has been closed since March due to work on a dilapidated retaining wall. It should have been released at the beginning of December, but then winter came and brought everything to a standstill. According to DB, the route, which is also important for traffic to and from Austria, will remain closed until “at least the end of January”.
“I often hear that the railway has now squandered its last loan”
“It’s frustrating,” says Christian Scheuerer, non-party mayor of Ohlstadt and spokesman for the 22 town hall bosses in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district. “I often hear that the railway has now lost its last loan.” Not only commuters and students are affected, tourism is also suffering. According to figures from 2019, around 10,000 passengers traveled daily on the section between Weilheim and Tutzing alone. The number of passengers is actually supposed to grow, but like that?
The local politician credits the railway for spending a lot of money and improving a number of things after the train accident, for example in communication. The fact that it snows heavily in the Alpine foothills is “not uncommon” in December. Scheuerer is surprised that the railway wasn’t better equipped. It’s reminiscent of the Bundesbahn’s old advertising slogan: “Everyone talks about the weather. We don’t.” Long ago.
A DB spokeswoman refers to the “extreme weather situation” with half a meter of snow within 24 hours. Employees were “sometimes only able to reach their workplace on foot,” and many vehicles were damaged. They are working “special shifts in order to be able to use the vehicles again as quickly as possible,” but due to long delivery times for spare parts, there will also be restrictions in the coming weeks. “We very much regret that we are currently not offering our customers and travelers the quality and reliability that they rightly expect from us.”
Railway expert Moy says an apology is not enough. “I refuse to accept this as the new normal,” the pro-rail man wrote in an incendiary letter to those responsible last week. “A means of transport that is not available or is available to a very limited extent for several months a year – for whatever reason – is unnecessary and can no longer be part of public services.” Compared to countries like Austria or Switzerland, which managed the onset of winter much better, Germany is “a developing country in terms of railways,” complains Moy. In order to fulfill the original timetable in Werdenfelser Land, he is calling for replacement trains to be used. He fears that otherwise the last train fans will switch to cars – and then stick with them. “The damage would be great, not just for the railways. Also for climate protection and the transport transition.”
In the town halls of the affected municipalities, however, people are inevitably exercising patience. After the snow chaos, the railway’s displeasure was made clear at a meeting, says Ohlstadt’s mayor Scheuerer. But no one can do magic. “Our great hope is that after the renovation we will have a well-functioning rail network by the end of 2024.” How many people will remain loyal to the railway until then is another question.