With 3.0 – ie “mediocre” – the railway evaluates its own infrastructure. What sounds mau is good news from a railway perspective. Because for the first time in years the condition has not worsened. The signal boxes remain a big problem child.
With billions in investments, Deutsche Bahn has said that it has at least partially braked the decay of its infrastructure. This emerges from the “network status report” for 2024, which the railway daughter of the railway has now published.
Since 2021, the railway has been giving grades in this report of its own infrastructure that are similar to the system of school grades: one means “as good as new”, a three “mediocre”, a five “poor”.
In the first report, the railway had given itself the overall grade of 2.93 – after that it was steadily downhill. In 2024 there is now a slight improvement: from a grade 3.03 to 3.00. The reason for this is high investments that the old federal government had launched.
Association per rail: downward trend stopped
Almost 20 billion euros were installed last year, said the head of the infrastructure company DB Infrago, Philipp Nagl. That was well -invested money. Now it is important to stabilize these funds in the long term – then “a real trend reversal could be successful”.
The managing director of the alliance alliance alliance, Dirk Flege, also praised behavior. There is “no reason for great jubilation”. But at least “the downward trend in the federal rail network seems to be stopped, and that is good news.”
However, the “freight railways”, an association of rail competitors, critically evaluated the report. Despite the billion-dollar expenses, only the further decay of the network was stopped. In addition: “The pace is not enough: more budget, but also a much better coordination of the many construction sites is required,” said Managing Director Peter Westenberger.
Every second signal box rated at least “badly”
A look at the details of the report shows why the praise is at best behavior. Because with the signal boxes, without which nothing works on the train, the situation has deteriorated further – from the grade 4.02 to a 4.12.
Every second of the approximately 4,000 signals in Germany we as “bad”, “poor” or “restrictive” – therefore urgently must be repaired or renewed. Some systems are more than 100 years old and still need to be operated by hand.
Many signal boxes in particular – here a look at the Frankfurt -Höchst – are considered outdated.
Even after the General renovation no one
However, according to the report, there are significant improvements at train stations, soft and tracks. According to its own statements, DB Infrago has renewed more than 2,000 kilometers of tracks and over 1,800 course and renovated dozens of train stations.
However, there are clear regional differences. While the railway rates its rail network in Thuringia with a 2.61, it is only 3.27 in North Rhine-Westphalia. And even on the Riedbahn, which is only completely renovated, not everything is yet fine. The train does not forgive one here, but “only” one 2.19. Compared to the previous year, however, this is a significant improvement. In 2023, the route between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim received a grade of 3.70.
With the concept of general renovation, the train hopes to get its problems under control. A route is completely blocked for a determined period in order to be able to renew tracks, signals, top lines and other infrastructure. The Riedbahn was a pioneer for this, and 40 other, busy sections are to follow by 2030.
