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Interlocking in Frankfurt am Main: up to 100 delays per day
Photo: Jan Huebner / Blatterspiel / IMAGO
Deutsche Bahn continues to have problems manning its signal boxes.
So far, the state-owned company has not even wanted to disclose this when asked by members of parliament, citing "security" and "competitive disadvantages".
Internal documents from DB NETZ AG are now available to SPIEGEL.
They show that last summer there was a sharp increase in delays nationwide because there were no or too few planned staff in the signal boxes to set the points.
In total, there were delays of 375,000 minutes between January and October due to signal box problems.
The situation in central Germany, for example in the Frankfurt area, was particularly dramatic.
There alone there were 100 delays a day.
The railway does not explain how many trains were canceled because of this.
The signal boxes are often notoriously understaffed, for example in the Leipzig area, in Bavaria and in western Germany.
There "there is no complete coverage of the effective personnel requirements for the signal box staff" to ensure operation at all.
»...that something has to be done here«
The railways have had problems manning their signal boxes for years.
The situation was particularly dramatic ten years ago, in 2013. A lack of staff meant that the main station in Mainz and Bebra (Hesse) were largely cut off from the network for weeks.
Part of the problem are very outdated, partly still mechanical interlockings that can only be operated by specially trained personnel.
Some of the signallers employed in the signal box were only trained for the section of line they were entrusted with and are therefore not always able to switch back and forth between the signal boxes.
In Mainz in the summer of 2013, vacation and sick leave from train dispatchers had accumulated to such an extent that the situation got out of control.
Even then-Chancellor Angela Merkel got involved.
The problems showed how thin the base of skilled workers and the overall workforce in the affected area were, Merkel said at the time.
The railways must ensure that enough trained staff are available so that “thousands of people don’t have to suffer every time, even when they are ill or on holiday”.
She could only support and emphasize "that something needs to be done here," said Merkel in 2013.
Has happened since then: not much.
And although Deutsche Bahn is hiring more staff than it has been for a long time, DB Netz will still be short of almost 2,500 employees in 2022.
It is not foreseeable that the interlocking problem will be solved soon.
