With the 9-euro ticket, Deutsche Bahn is once again in the public eye. The journalist Arno Luik has been dealing with the companies for years. In an interview, he explains why he is so disappointed in his managers and what gives him little hope.
FOCUS Online: Mr. Luik, do you remember your last trip with Deutsche Bahn?
Arno Luik: It was a trip that didn’t take place. I wanted to go to Stuttgart from my home village in the Swabian Jura. The train didn’t come, no train came at all. At the decrepit train station there is no sign, no note, nothing. A fellow citizen told me: “The newspaper said that the route is closed until June 24th.” Aha. That made me realize again what a desolate, almost irreparable condition Deutsche Bahn is in.
Does that mean you still travel by train? Did you get the 9 euro ticket?
Luik: I used to like to travel by train. It’s over. After 15 years I canceled my train ticket. The reason for my train refusal: the notorious unreliability. I might buy the 9 euro ticket. But I’m not really happy with that. Even if Anton Hofreiter from the Greens thinks that the 9-euro ticket makes local transport palatable and is a good idea. In my opinion, he suffers from a loss of reality with this assessment.
Firstly, the railway is hopelessly overwhelmed and secondly, a rush like the one we are experiencing now will not make the railway more attractive – but an even greater annoyance for many citizens. Overcrowded platforms, cleared trains, melee fights for seats, chaos here, chaos there. The 9-euro ticket is hasty and not really well thought out. I’m afraid it will not lead to people in Germany switching to the train in the long term.
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The fact that there were more disruptions to the railways than usual over the Pentecost weekend did not surprise you.
Luik: I’m not surprised at all. For more than 25 years, the leading railway managers have been trying to destroy the railway. It all began in 1994 with the rail reform, which aimed to go public and privatize. From that moment on, systematic savings were made everywhere.
Those responsible were short of staff and repairs, and the number of employees in the freight area alone was almost halved. The company outsourced important functions, and today there are hardly any planning offices left by the railways. For a few years, the gradual deterioration could still be concealed, after all, the railway was a very robust system before. Now, however, we have reached the point of collapse. For Germany as a technology location, this run-down railway is embarrassing, basically a shame.
The whole situation is also sad because Germany was once a railway country. Deutsche Bahn was a role model for many other countries. It’s been a long time. Everyone was amazed at how punctual the trains were in this country. Today the only train that departs on time is the Mainz Shrove Monday train.
What you say can also be backed up by figures: in 2021, every fourth long-distance train was too late. Why is it that the railway gives off such a bad image?
Luik: In my opinion, a major problem with Deutsche Bahn is the incompetence of its managers. I’ve always wondered why people from the aviation and automotive industries came to the top of a company that could and should stand for an ecological turnaround in transport.
I don’t think that FC Bayern Munich, if they were looking for a new coach, would hire the coach of a table tennis club. But that’s how it went for years at the railway. People became rail bosses who had hardly any idea of the highly complex rail system. Trainees. Even the current CEO, Richard Lutz, is not a real railroader, but a financial controller. Who has willingly approved all the unfortunate austerity measures of his predecessors.
The fact that the state of the railway is so deplorable is also due to its international business. The company is active in more than 140 countries. Deutsche Bahn operates everything there, for example it is the largest ship provider between the west coast of America and Asia and operates biogas buses in Denmark.
These deals are not lucrative. However, they mean that the railways in Germany are hardly making any headway. Although it gets billions from its citizens. What remains for them is anger, frustration, delayed, overcrowded or completely canceled trains. I’m really amazed at the endurance of many rail customers.
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Most probably have no choice – they have to rely on the railways.
Luik: Yes, of course that’s true. For me it is simply unbelievable how badly the railway has been dismantled. An example: In the last 25 years, the number of points has been halved, from 130,000 to almost 70,000 today. However, each torn switch means: fewer opportunities to overtake, fewer alternatives. In other words, delays are structurally planned.
In the past, at the Deutsche Bundesbahn, important things were replaced as a preventive measure, during ongoing operations. So the traveler saw little, if anything, of the repairs. Nowadays, everything is left to rot, and that’s why there are these annoying complete closures everywhere, even on the most important routes – that didn’t exist before. However, not only their managers are responsible for the desolate condition of the railways, but also the federal government. The gentlemen and ladies in the Chancellery.
Don’t you think the traffic light parties will do better than their predecessors? The current coalition agreement also contains a number of rail policy items.
Luke: Really? The Greens want an ecological traffic turnaround. At least that’s what they say ritually. But what are they actually doing? Speed limit on the streets? Why didn’t they take over the Department of Transportation? This is where the course is set for reason and climate friendliness. And one more thing: In the negotiated coalition agreement, the topic of rail takes up just one page. An ecological transport policy does not seem to be that important to those in government. But it gets worse.
What’s written on this page is a loose hodgepodge of promises heard from politicians for years: reactivation of routes, electrification, capacity expansion. In 1994 there were still 13,000 sidings for industrial plants and businesses, today there are just over 2000. An unbelievable overexploitation. Against this background, politicians’ promises to get more freight and more people onto the rails have been shattered. They are grotesque.
Deutsche Bahn is always touted as the climate-friendly means of transport of the future. Can this plan work at all?
Luik: I find such announcements cheeky, given the actual situation with the railway. One of the few good ideas that ex-Bahn boss Rüdiger Grube had was not to let ICEs travel faster than 250 kilometers per hour. Today, routes are created on which the trains are supposed to travel at a significantly higher speed – at 330. That is ecological outrage.
In addition, more and more railway tunnels have been built in recent years. This is also fatal for the environment. Building one kilometer of rail tunnel produces as much CO2 as 26,000 cars driving 13,000 kilometers a year.
And when express trains rush through these tunnels, they use so much energy that the advertised eco-bonus for the railways fizzles out – actually a big issue for the activists of “Fridays for Future”. But unfortunately I hear surprisingly little from them when it comes to trains. You would have to vehemently defend yourself against this concrete and tunnel railway.
So: The railway could be ecological and reasonable, but I don’t have the feeling that those responsible really want that. Take a look at the large-scale project Stuttgart 21: at least 60 kilometers of tunnels are being dug in Stuttgart for this underground station. Goodbye climate.
In your opinion, what should change at Deutsche Bahn?
Luke: Almost everything. The structure of eight different railway companies would have to be broken up, since they act more against than with each other. Politicians should immediately ensure that Deutsche Bahn’s gigantic international business is ended and the company focuses again on train travel in Germany. When Hartmut Mehdorn came to power, Deutsche Bahn was still doing more than 90 percent of its business with rail travel in Germany.
Today she does more than 50 percent abroad – often with things that have nothing to do with rail and rail. A lot of money is moved there, but the profit margins are small and the competition is extremely tough. More than ten billion euros were probably lost in this foreign commitment – investments that do not pay off.
In the spring of 2022, the Court of Auditors once again complained as violently as without consequences: The foreign business of Bahn AG was becoming a risk for the state budget: “Deutsche Bahn has increasingly lost sight of its core railway business in Germany”. Instead of making a “stabilizing contribution” to the finances, the foreign expansion has the exact opposite effect. Bahn AG is currently in debt with 35 billion euros, i.e. practically bankrupt.
By the way, you can see from countries like Italy, Austria and Switzerland that you can use the train in a completely different way, much better, much more rationally. There the trains are on time, clean, you can rely on them. Everything is coordinated, in Switzerland, for example, even with cable cars and ships.
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You also mentioned the Swiss state railway as a prime example in other interviews.
Luik: The Swiss put more money into their trains, they love them like many Germans love their cars. Rural regions are well connected to the cities. The trains in our neighboring country are much neater and better maintained than ours. Standing at the main train station in Zurich, you can see the difference: on the one hand the dirty ICEs from Germany, on the other hand the sparkling clean trains from Switzerland. In this country, even engine drivers are ashamed of the railways.
The majority of Swiss people also have the so-called half-fare subscription, something like our Bahncard. The Swiss government dramatically reduced the cost of this subscription years ago, with the result that many citizens switched to the train. With us, politics does exactly the opposite: it makes travel more difficult, it makes it more expensive.
With the 9-euro ticket, it is now cheaper.
Luik: You have to look at it differently. With bargain prices like this, many people will take trips they wouldn’t otherwise take. This also means more mobility, which is actually unnecessary. But the goal should be to travel less and more consciously.
No 9 euro ticket, but no overpriced train tickets either. What would be the right path for the future?
Luik: The train could be a reliable, clean, safe means of transport. This also includes simple, manageable tariffs – not this jumble of savings prices, super savings prices and all the special offers there are. And they would also have to abolish this unfriendly, customer-hostile class system, for example: that almost only Bahncard holders are allowed in the lounges.
The other travelers are banished to the few, often dirty, mostly draughty benches. There used to be waiting rooms in every train station, even in the country. And something extremely important: Deutsche Bahn would have to say goodbye to many large-scale projects, most of which are concrete buildings and therefore climate killers. And which are also incredibly expensive, for example Stuttgart 21 with the new tunnel line to Ulm: Of the 15 billion euros that the whole thing will cost, you could build 1,500 stations at 10 million euros each or rehabilitate the battered rail network.
And what do you think of a completely free rail market?
Luke: Nothing. Let’s take a look at Great Britain: There, ticket prices exploded, the rail network fell apart, there were endless accidents, deaths and injuries, and almost only those routes that were lucrative were served. The country was left behind. It is fashionable to speak of competition on the rails. I find that depressing.
The advocates of competition act as if any number of competitors could run their trains at the same time on the too few existing routes. An impossibility. But: For economic reasons, the private companies want and have to use their trains at peak times on those routes, i.e. only where it is attractive: for example on weekdays between seven and nine a.m. from Hamburg to Berlin.
But who determines who is allowed to serve these lucrative time slots? Rampant bureaucracy, legal hiccups are foreseeable. And who then makes sure that trains run in the countryside – for example from Itzelberg to Mergelstetten? no Privatization would be a grandiose support program for even more car traffic. Goodbye climate.
Despite all the criticism, the question remains: In your opinion, has Deutsche Bahn done anything right in the past few years?
Luik: As you can see, I think about it for a long time. And yet I can hardly think of anything positive. I just have to think of my home station, which has deteriorated so badly over the years that it just makes me sad. Nevertheless, I am an optimistic pessimist: I hope that reason will prevail and that the situation will improve, even though I know that this will be a Herculean task.
The rather chaotic 9-euro ticket experiment shows that the state could very well and, above all, make a better rail policy in the long term. He could make the railway really attractive – economically, ecologically. If he really wanted it.
Arno Luik was a reporter for Geo and the Berliner Tagesspiegel, editor-in-chief of the taz, deputy editor-in-chief of the Munich evening newspaper and long-time author of the magazine Stern. His book “Schaden in der Oberleitung. The planned railway disaster”, which was on the bestseller lists for weeks after its publication, was recently published in an updated form (Westend 2021, 303 pages, 12 euros). For his revelations in the matter of Stuttgart 21, Luik received the “Beacon for Special Journalistic Achievements” from the Recherche network.
Conversations by “Germany’s leading interviewer” (taz) have been translated into more than 25 languages; In 2008, Luik was named “Cultural Journalist of the Year” for his conversation with Inge and Walter Jens. He has just published his best interviews, the title of the interview volume is a quote from Angela Merkel: “When the wall fell, I was in the sauna” (Westend, 2022, 287 pages, 24 euros)
