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GWhen it comes to Deutsche Bahn, nerves are quickly on edge. Two small events from the past few days could not document it better: A school class makes its way from Berlin to Paris on Monday – by train, because of the climate. The transfer time in Mannheim is 11 minutes. In a teenager’s life, that’s about 33 Tiktoks – half an eternity. In times of train chaos, it’s a blink of an eye. What 11 minutes mean is clear to everyone involved, including the teacher duo, even before the start of the journey: Due to the almost inevitable delay, the connecting train will not be available, which means hours of loitering at the Mannheim train station, followed by a chaotic onward journey without a reservation and one at night Arrival in Paris. A timely arrival in Mannheim? Completely unthinkable.

The second event is making far bigger waves: The “Germany cycle”, allegedly planned for 2030, will be “postponed” to 2070, i.e. by a whopping 40 years, according to some press releases at the end of last week that referred to the Federal Government’s rail commissioner , Michael Theurer. Although probably not many rail customers have fully penetrated the sophisticated concept of the “Deutschlandtakt”, everyone knows what that means: two generations of rail customers will not experience a functioning railroad, so they say. The reactions from the industry are also sharp: “These statements from the Ministry of Transport are incomprehensible, and the political signal is devastating,” reproaches the association of freight railways, a network of European railways.



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