Munich (dpa / lby) – The Bavarian Railway Company (BEG) considers the condition of the infrastructure on regional railway lines to be “unacceptable”. Shortcomings led to more and more delays and cancellations, the BEG criticized on Monday. Lines away from the main traffic routes are particularly affected: there, a reasonably punctual train service is sometimes hardly possible.
The state BEG finances and controls the regional and S-Bahn traffic in Bavaria. According to the BEG, the punctuality rate fell to almost 83 percent in June. Train cancellations due to route closures are not even taken into account. “The latest development is really frightening,” said BEG Managing Director Bärbel Fuchs. DB Netz often announces speed restrictions and construction work at very short notice. “Neither for the BEG nor for the passengers is this situation acceptable any longer. We urge DB Netz to preventively better maintain the infrastructure.”
The 9-euro ticket also causes delays, but deficiencies in the rail infrastructure caused 45 percent of the delays. The proportion of road defects alone rose from 1.8 percent in the period from January to May to 11.7 percent in June.
A particularly drastic example is the Werdenfels network: on the railway lines between Munich, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Kochel and Oberammergau, the number of delays due to road defects rose from 60 a month in May to 1,250 in June. Because of the investigations into the train accident near Garmisch-Partenkirchen on June 3, no railway operations are possible south of Oberau. Even six weeks later, DB still did not provide enough replacement buses. The BEG therefore warned DB Regio and asked it to perform the contractual service immediately.
Bavaria’s Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU) said that the general renovation of the routes between the conurbations announced by DB “is of little use to the 1.3 million passengers a day in Bavarian regional and S-Bahn traffic if the condition of the less frequented routes is so remains bad”.