The organization “Bahn für Alle”, an action alliance of environmental organizations and trade unions, describes the situation on Europe’s tracks as a “patchwork of different railway systems”. The national rail networks are “not thought of across borders” and are not harmonized enough within the continent. Cross-border rail traffic is considered an effective way to reduce air traffic. This requires fast connections between European metropolises and night trains, the “renaissance of a European long-distance travel and night train network,” writes the alliance in a new short study.
The report is about the harmonization progress of the railway system. From the results, the alliance wants to derive recommendations for climate protection with night and long-distance trains. After a few months, study director Ludwig Lindern draws a sobering conclusion. Accordingly, the infrastructure of Deutsche Bahn stands in the way of a harmonization of European rail traffic.
In the overall assessment, which is based on four criteria, Germany received a grade of four and thus ranked 20th out of a total of 24 countries examined. Only Estonia and Latvia fared worse. However, the two countries will soon “move up the rankings” and overtake Germany with the “Rail Baltica” project, which connects the capitals in the Baltic States.
“The insufficient adaptation of the German railway infrastructure to international standards is slowing down long-distance travel and night train traffic throughout Europe,” quotes the “Tagesschau” Ludwig Lindern. Germany deviates from the European standard in almost all assessment categories. On the one hand, there is the height of the platforms, which is 55 centimeters in most countries. In Germany it is usually 76 centimetres, which makes barrier-free long-distance traffic more difficult. While the railways in Germany run with a voltage of 15 kV and a frequency of 16.7 Hz, a network with 25 kV and a frequency of 50 Hz has established itself as the European standard. This has the advantage “that no separate traction current network has to be operated, but that the electricity can be taken from the general power supply of the European integrated electricity network with comparatively little effort,” says the report.
The Deutsche Bahn, on the other hand, refers to the modern multiple railcars, which can run on the overhead line independently of the frequency and voltage, after a request from the SWR. In addition, the conversion to the European power grid would be accompanied by the conversion of “overhead lines on around 20,000 kilometers of electrified route and the construction of new tunnels and bridges,” explains the company. However, the differences in the power grids cause additional costs and the well-known “delays in operations”.
After all, Germany also lags behind when it comes to train protection technology. A few years ago, it was agreed to introduce the European Train Control System (ETCS) as a Europe-wide, uniform system. But the expansion is going at different speeds in the individual countries. In Switzerland and Luxembourg, the entire rail network is already equipped with it, but in Germany only about 400 kilometers. When asked by SWR, the railway responded vaguely: “By 2035, DB will have fundamentally renewed the control and safety technology in the rail network, including through the area rollout of the European train control system ETCS (European Train Control System).”
In addition, there is another point of criticism: Germany has blocked the Europe-wide approval of trains in local passenger transport, criticizes Josef Doppelbauer, senior director of the European Railway Agency, in the report of the “Tagesschau”. Passenger coaches always require national approval – an expensive and time-consuming process. This was to be replaced by Europe-wide approval in 2019, but Germany vetoed it. Doppelbauer is hoping for a more positive result in the next vote next February.
“You have to decide whether you want to use expensive multi-system locomotives in cross-border traffic in the long term or whether the systems will be harmonized – initially with a lot of resources – in order to then be able to operate rail traffic much more flexibly and cost-effectively in the long term,” warns Ludwig Lindern. Germany only meets the European standard of 1.435 millimeters for the track width, which indicates the inner distance between the rails. The “Bahn für Alle” (rail for all) alliance thinks it’s a start, but not enough for the contribution to climate protection in the transport sector. In order to shift more flights to the rails, “Germany, as the largest European economy and geographically located in the middle, must lead the way in standardization and not lag behind,” the author of the study concludes.
Sources: “Bahn für Alle”, “Tagesschau”
