After the fatal train accident in Garmisch, rail customers will face further hardships: DB announces that thousands of concrete sleepers will also be examined. Meanwhile, there is good news in freight transport.
In the course of the train accident in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Deutsche Bahn is examining another 130,000 concrete sleepers. “Unfortunately, this will presumably mean that further restrictions cannot be avoided,” said the state-owned company. Until the affected thresholds have been replaced, there could be slowdowns and route closures. In recent months, only about 60 percent of long-distance trains have been on time for various reasons.
In the train accident in June near Garmisch-Partenkirchen with five dead, the concrete sleepers came into focus as a possible cause. The railways then examined 200,000 of a type and then began replacing 137,000. This had already caused train delays and cancellations. According to Bahn, two thirds of the following restrictions have been remedied.
Further examinations of the sleepers have now revealed that there is a manufacturing defect and that a certain type of rock in the concrete could be partly responsible for the damage. Therefore, 130,000 sleepers with this type of rock from other manufacturers are now being checked.
Meanwhile, logisticians and railway associations announced more efforts to channel the flood of parcels onto the rails. Parcel services and transport companies want to shift the transport of parcels more to rail routes and thus make them more environmentally friendly. To do this, however, politicians must improve the framework conditions, demanded the Federal Association of Parcel and Express Logistics (BIEK) and the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) together with the Pro-Rail Alliance in a position paper. Among other things, the expansion of the rail infrastructure must be accelerated, more sidings must be created and the urban rail infrastructure expanded.
Competitors of the German market leader Deutsche Post such as UPS and Hermes are organized in the BIEK. According to earlier information, the Bonn-based group transports around six percent of its parcels by rail, and in the long term around 20 percent of national parcel shipments are to be transported by rail.
