Lack of staff at signal boxes
Railway is facing further route closures
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Train commuters in Stuttgart and Magdeburg are facing frustration. Because there is a lack of staff for signal boxes, entire routes will probably be canceled until the end of 2025. The Federal Network Agency sounds the alarm and blames the subsidiary DB Infrago.
According to a media report, Deutsche Bahn has problems manning all of its signal boxes around the clock. According to information from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, there is a lack of staff in the control centers where switches and signals are set. The bottlenecks are so significant that entire locations and therefore also routes are temporarily canceled. The problems are currently particularly serious in the Stuttgart metropolitan area and in the region around Magdeburg.
The newspaper refers to circles within the railway group. Here you don't even try to gloss over the mishap. “The need for personnel at the signal boxes cannot currently be met,” says the state-owned company in an internal presentation, according to SZ. The result is likely to be even more delays, more train cancellations and even more frustration among customers. And according to management, there is no quick improvement in sight: According to internal documents, the railway has set itself the goal of ensuring signal box staffing only “from the end of 2025,” the paper quotes.
“Management misjudgments”
The signal box problems are also causing a lot of trouble within the group. Managers of the railway subsidiaries DB Cargo and DB Fernverkehr believe that the public good-oriented railway subsidiary DB Infrago, which operates the rail network and the stations, is to blame. “Train cancellations, detours and travel time extensions cause us considerable financial damage,” writes the freight transport subsidiary DB Cargo, according to the report. These could not be completely compensated for. DB Long-distance transport also complains about “long delays” or even train cancellations. This leads to loss of sales and damage to the company's image.
The responsible supervisory authority, the Federal Network Agency in Bonn, has now also become alarmed – and blames the management team at DB Infrago for the misery in the signal boxes. “Miscalculations by the management of DB Infrago appear to have a very significant influence on the development of personnel requirements,” said an authority spokeswoman in response to an SZ query. The modernization of signal boxes is progressing more slowly than expected, and “jobs with outdated technical equipment” are “not sufficiently attractive” for many young people. Only through the “high personal commitment” of the employees could major failures have been prevented for longer, but the problem is now being exacerbated by the “persistently high level of stress” on the staff.