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Scoreboard at Berlin Central Station
Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
The railway plans to invest a record amount in 2021 to reduce the huge renovation backlog in the German rail network.
As early as 2020, 12.2 billion euros were built, said Infrastructure Director Ronald Pofalla.
In the coming year there will be “another significant increase”.
However, it will take many years until the network is rehabilitated.
Pofalla wants to renovate the entire network by 2030.
86 billion euros are available for this, including 62 billion euros from the federal government.
According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, the quota of bridges to be renovated will not decrease in the next four years.
It will even increase slightly at signal boxes and level crossings.
A decline in the pending renovations is only to be expected in the case of tracks and points, according to an answer to the Green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler.
Kindler accused the federal government of doing too little against the restructuring backlog of 57 billion euros for years.
"This is an important cause of train cancellations and delays that rail customers across the country feel every day," he said.
The Allianz pro Schiene association also criticized the federal government's reluctance to expand and build new routes.
This is necessary if the number of passengers is to be doubled and more goods traffic is to be handled, as planned.
Despite the Corona crisis, Pofalla assumes that 99 percent of the planned railway construction projects will be implemented by the end of the year.
In the 33,000-kilometer network, 1,500 kilometers of tracks and 1,500 switches have been renewed, 100 bridges have been renovated and 620 stations have been made more attractive.
In terms of punctuality, Pofalla believes that the train has to get even better.
It is expected that well over 80 percent of the long-distance trains will have been on time this year, he said.
That is the best value in years.
But he doesn't want to be satisfied with that.
“Our actual target is 85 percent.” Deutsche Bahn considers a train to be on time if it arrives less than six minutes after the scheduled time.
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ssu / dpa
