It emerged this week that the German railway company Deutsche Bahn is sending empty trains running around Berlin. Citing “insiders,” the Berlin daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reports that about “five or six ICE trains are driven through and around the city at night with no passengers on board.”
The reason for this is the lack of railway sidings. Berlin is located in the far northeast of Germany, and many long-distance rail lines end in the German capital. Consequently, a lot of train journeys terminate there in the evening, and depart from there in the morning. However, there are simply not enough tracks where stationary trains can be parked.
The tracks in and around the city are busy, and some passenger trains still run at night. So Deutsche Bahn’s high-speed ICEs are forced to keep moving, to whichever tracks are not in use at any given time. A DB spokesperson described this to Der Tagespiegel as “a completely normal operational procedure.”
The newspaper reports that Deutsche Bahn abandoned plans to lay new sidings just to the south of Berlin after protests from local residents. It now plans to construct a similar facility in the northern district of Pankow.
Not enough tracks — or drivers
This aimless running of trains doesn’t only waste electricity. The drivers who work at night, moving the empty trains out of the way, are then unavailable for regular passenger services during the day.
This exacerbates a long-standing problem: the shortage of skilled workers. According to Wirtschaftswoche business magazine, the German train drivers’ union GDL estimates that there are 1,200 unfilled train driver positions across the country. This despite the fact that, according to the rail transport advocacy group Allianz pro Schiene, another 1,000 skilled workers are added to the workforce every year. Given that there are plans to shift more traffic to rail, in future an additional 5,000 train drivers will be needed annually — at least.
Digital arrival timetables
While it is finding it hard to extend the rail network and recruit skilled workers, Deutsche Bahn is keen to push ahead with digitalization.
At the end of November, the company announced that, from December 15, printed timetables of arrivals would no longer be displayed on platforms. Every station currently displays yellow departure schedules listing the departure times of trains from that station, as well as white arrival schedules that show the times trains are due to arrive.
The company explained the change as an effort to save paper and administrative costs, and said that QR codes would be displayed instead of printed schedules. These can provide real-time arrival information, it said, adding: “Travelers need reliable information in real time.”
People on social media were quick to mock the announcement. “Makes sense, when trains arrive randomly, or not at all :D,” wrote one user on X (formerly Twitter). Deutsche Bahn claims that its trains have been more punctual recently; nonetheless, more than one in three long-distance services still arrives late. A train is officially considered late if it arrives six minutes or more after the scheduled time. Delays of several hours are now increasingly common.
Responding to criticism
Before comedians and satirists were able to turn this into material for their extensive repertoire of German train jokes, Deutsche Bahn backpedaled. On Friday, the state-owned company issued an announcement: “Deutsche Bahn responds to criticism: Printed arrival timetables at stations will remain.”
Critics had argued that not everyone who comes to collect someone at the station has a smartphone, or knows how to scan a QR code. In fact, according to Deutsche Bahn, the white arrival timetables are currently only displayed at about one in ten stations — predominantly the larger ones, where trains sometimes stop for longer between arrival and departure.
Nonetheless, the company now says it will “thoroughly evaluate the use of printed media at stations in the upcoming phase of scheduling.” The provision of analog timetables will be discussed, in consultation with relevant interest groups. In other words, they will assess whether the schedules really are worth the paper they’re printed on.
People still want to travel by train
It seems paradoxical, but in spite of all the upheaval and difficulties, people in Germany still haven’t turned their backs on the train. Quite the opposite, in fact: There is significantly higher demand for rail travel. The number of train passengers has increased by around 50% since the 1990s; freight traffic has almost doubled. Deutsche Bahn has also increased the number of its locomotives and carriages. At the same time, though, the rail network has shrunk by more than 10%.
During the Euro 2024 soccer championship this summer, tens of thousands of European football fans experienced the now customary train cancellations, delays, and malfunctions for themselves. Suddenly, the quasi-monopolist Deutsche Bahn found itself in the international spotlight. Since then, it has launched a reconstruction program, in an effort to restore the good reputation Germany’s railways once enjoyed far beyond the country’s borders.
This article has been translated from German.
