Germany rail network renovation Steffen Bilger, Digi Mart USA News: Roughly 100 days after taking office, German Federal Transport Minister Steffen Bilger has promised a noticeable improvement in the country’s rail network. He said record sums are currently being invested in infrastructure, with about 25 billion euros allocated this year alone.
Speaking at an event organized by the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Berlin, the CDU politician said the federal government is in the final stages of negotiating a performance agreement with DB InfraGo, the rail infrastructure subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn. “That will finally create the turnaround,” he said.
The agreement is intended to specify how the billions of euros in coming years will be concretely used.
Bilger also defended his decision to concentrate general renovation work on fewer heavily used corridors per year than previously planned, which will delay completion of the concept. He said too many projects had run in parallel without achieving the desired results.
After months of closure on the Berlin-Hamburg line, punctuality initially reached only 25 percent. “That is something you naturally cannot explain to anyone,” he said.
