German government protects rail operators and funds new infrastructure.

photo: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/experts-guide-to-german-trains/index.html/Mittenwaldbahn

The German government approved funding for new private lines. The federation will not own those tracks, but they will be only for freight transport. They also approved waiving or refund up to 98% of track access charges paid by the commercial rail operators.

The German government agreed to provide funding for the construction of new freight railway lines. The Railway Law Consolidation Act made the provisions, while the funding is to be performed via amendments to the existing Rail Freight Transport Network Funding Act (SGFFG). 

“The climate protection targets recently tightened by the European Union can only be achieved if a lot more goods are transported by rail,” VDV president, Mr Ingo Wortmann said. “To do this, we need efficient railways in the ports – and that is why the port railways must be included in the SGFFG funding envelope again.”

In addition, they also approved waiving or refund up to 98% of track access charges paid by the commercial rail operators. The charges in question are the ones which were paid since last year’s March. The charges, paid by freight operators till December 2021, will be reduced too, and for the long-distance passenger operators, it will be even longer. On the other hand, the reductions and refunds are planned only for commercial activities. Those expenses from contracted local and regional rail services do not change. 

Most of the freight operators will be eligible for the refund. That includes FlixTrain, or Thalys’ Aachen – Dortmund and RDC’s Autozug Sylt Westerland services. But the most profiting company will be DB. Infrastructure manager DB Networks will be reimbursed for the loss of track access revenues in line with the emergency provisions agreed by the European Union in June 2020. DB Long Distance and DB Cargo will be the biggest operators to benefit.

The federation will not own the new tracks. That opens the question of how the profits will be distributed. Whilst the operators can be happy two ways now.