In an internal report from Deutsche Bahn’s Supervisory Board, DB Netz chairman Philipp Nagl warned that the poor condition of parts of the national rail network could jeopardize future growth and service quality. The report says that the cost of restoring 33,400 kilometers of the route network to good condition is 89 billion euros, Railway Supply reports, citing the Railway Gazette.

DB Netz

The report divides all infrastructure assets valued in 2021 into five categories, the worst of which is “unsatisfactory” or “insufficient”. Overall, the infrastructure portfolio is rated 2.93. 2,378 signal posts or controls, which is about half of the total, are rated as bad (4 points) or worse, the same applies to 2,310 bridges. The cost of repairs is estimated at 10.9 billion euros and 17.2 billion euros, respectively.

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The most actively used 10% of the network has a rating of 3.01. About 26% of all turnouts receive a poor or unsatisfactory rating, the same applies to 23% of other track facilities, 22% of catenary equipment and 42% of level crossings.

Compared to other European rail networks, Switzerland has an overall rating of 2.7, Austria 2.1 and Norway 2.2, significantly better than the German network. The report says the goal should be to achieve a rating of 2.5 or higher for the future “high performance” part of the network.

The report argues that a “radical change of course” is needed to meet the demands of growing traffic and create a reliable network. A common upgrade concept is needed to improve the health of the infrastructure across all parts of the network, which reduces the susceptibility of systems to failures.

“The German rail network is in parts too old, too prone to failure and offers insufficient capacity,” Nagl concluded.

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