Germany has the largest railway network in all of Europe. But it is old and overcrowded, causing frequent train delays and cancellations. He himself even mocked the lack of punctuality at Deutsche Bahn, the country’s main railway company. But the German authorities are not happy about this: the Minister of Transport believes that the state of the railways poses a threat to democracy because citizens are losing confidence in the state’s ability to solve problems. In the coming years, the German government is prepared to spend more than 100 billion euros on large-scale modernization of railway infrastructure. Financial Times He tellsWhy are German railways so dilapidated and how are they trying to fix them?
The scheduled train journey from Hamburg to Düsseldorf takes four hours. But for Nicholas Kramer, a director of a healthcare consulting firm who visits hospitals across Germany, it took 23 hours recently. His train was delayed for several hours, then canceled altogether. The other trains were full, so Kramer could not leave until the next morning. His second train was delayed by more than an hour and a half.
Kramer, 52, travels nearly 60,000 kilometers by train every year. According to him, dark humor and careful planning help in overcoming constant delays and cancellations. When arranging important meetings, he allows a large reserve of time – up to three and a half hours – and just in case, he always carries a spare set of clothes and a toothbrush with him.
German railways known for him Failure to adhere to appointments. Although there are many railway operators in the country, the biggest blow to their reputation is borne by the largest, Deutsche Bahn. This is a state-owned company serves More than half of all short-distance passenger trains and almost all long-distance trains, it also operates the bulk of Germany’s railway network, the most extensive in Europe.
father Information Deutsche Bahn itself, in 2024, only 63% of its trains arrived on time (more precisely, with a delay of less than six minutes). In 2025 this share decreased Up to 60%, which become Historical minimum Deutsche Bahn points to aging infrastructure and attempts to repair it as the main reason for the delay: repairs are necessary, but they increase the burden on already congested roads.
Germans are tired of being angry about train delays He started Bet on them. Deutsche Bahn too Try Exploited their shortcomings by launching a social media PR campaign in 2025 for Seven million euro. The German Ministry of Transport did not appreciate such self-irony. Department Head Patrick Schneider Fired Director of Deutsche Bahn I maleThe railway situation poses a threat to democracy. “We must not allow people to get the impression that the government is unable to deal with problems such as dilapidated bridges or chronic train delays,” the minister said.
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The current problems facing German railways stem from decisions made more than twenty years ago. At the time, Germany was suffering from unemployment, weak economic growth, and a budget deficit. Against this background It has been discussed Opportunity to partially privatize Deutsche Bahn by going public. The idea was never implemented, but it still had far-reaching consequences.
The Financial Times wrote that an attempt to improve the company’s financial performance before the initial public offering led to savings in railway maintenance. According to the publication’s calculations, in the period 2005-2010, the budget of the railway network was 20% less than in the mid-1990s. Later, investments in it were restricted through a “debt brake” mechanism introduced in Germany after the global financial crisis in 2008. The German government was only allowed to spend as much money as it received.
In the spring of 2025, Germany eased its debt brake to It opens Space for investment in the fields of defence, infrastructure and environmental protection. It was created The $500 billion infrastructure fund finances, among other things, the federal program to modernize the rail network. Until 2029 Planned Directly approximately 107 billion euros. The main recipient of the funds will be Deutsche Bahn as the company that operates the railway. Now it needs to spend this money effectively.
To achieve this, Deutsche Bahn abandoned its traditional practice of repairing railway lines piece by piece, keeping them in good condition. Now the company can shut down the main lines for several months to fully restore them. “We are doing more work in these few months than in all the previous years combined,” Philipp Nagel, CEO of DB InfraGO, Deutsche Bahn’s infrastructure division, told the Financial Times.
Thus, from February to July 2026, one of the oldest and most important railway lines in Cologne – Hagen will be closed. Typically, up to 280 trains a day run on this route, which was launched in the mid-19th century. Due to the closure of the line, passengers will either have to take alternative routes or transfer to buses stuck in traffic jams. “There are very difficult times ahead. But then the situation will get better,” Nagel promised.
In the period 2024-2026, the number of construction sites in the Deutsche Bahn network increased by a third and receipt 28 thousand. By the end of 2026, the company plans to repair 900 kilometers of track, nearly a quarter of the total railway. He plans to update. To understand the scope of work: 900 kilometers is almost half the length of all railway lines built in the country since 1945.
Nagel describes it as the largest investment program in rail infrastructure since Germany’s post-war reconstruction – although he says even $107 billion will not be enough to make up for years of underfunding. But industry experts still believe the modernization will breathe new life into German railways. The first results are already in visual: Their condition stopped deteriorating.