There was no chaos.

The train drivers' strike has affected the supply chains in the economy less than feared.

According to a sample by the FAZ, the companies have largely cushioned production stoppages and thus even a slowdown in the economic recovery after Corona, as feared by BDI President Siegried Russwurm.

The loss of image of the rail, however, remains.

And that at a time when the share of freight transport by rail has recently even declined again despite political efforts to the contrary.

Of the up to 3,000 freight trains that, according to Deutsche Bahn, travel daily in Germany, 400 were “in the backlog” on Sunday.

If the strike ends for the time being this Tuesday, Deutsche Bahn will comment on further details.

The companies have apparently learned to deal with such strikes.

Affected yes, but hardly hit, is the tenor of those interviewed by the FAZ.

Even in the chemical and steel industry, which has traditionally been heavily geared towards rail transport, the consequences are limited.

At the chemical company BASF, which transports a quarter of its goods and raw materials by rail, the strike did not result in any major restrictions.

So far, no "significantly negative" effects on customers and BASF are known.

According to the group, around 80 so-called block trains run on the main axes between the large production sites in Europe every week, i.e. transports exclusively made up of their own products.

BASF is not only working with Deutsche Bahn.

The transports are organized in such a way that other private rail transport companies can also be used at short notice.

The rail strike is also causing work for the Bavarian chemical manufacturer Wacker.

"There are individual failures or delays, but the strike has no effect on our production," said a spokesman.

Alternatives to Deutsche Bahn

Wacker not only relies on the railways, but also works with private providers. In the run-up to the strike, Wacker had increased supplies, but also took other measures, such as moving most of the transport between the plants to the road. The steel companies surveyed by the FAZ paint a similar picture. “The effects are kept within reasonable limits,” says Stahlholding Saar, whose companies Saarstahl and Dillinger Hütte are also dependent on rail transport. Some of the sister companies also rely on private competition from the railways. In addition, it is said that you can always find solutions with the train itself. Important customers such as the steel industry are apparently not let down by the railway on strike days. The railway will then change its priorities.

According to a spokesman, ThyssenKrupp's steel logistics got through the new strike phase without any major consequences: “As things stand, we are recording some delays and delays in shipments and some failures. Production and customer shipping are not affected in the long term. ”The rail strike does not hit Deutsche Post with full force either. "Parcel trains" were affected by the strike, said a spokesman. The broadcasts would be shifted to the streets. “As a result, only minor effects are to be expected for our customers”. Even without strikes, the share of parcels transported by rail has so far only been around two percent. As part of its climate protection strategy, however, Swiss Post intends to triple this proportion initially and even increase it to 20 percent in the long term.

The mechanical engineering association VDMA already knows from previous rail strikes that its member companies are less dependent on rail and more on truck transport. Apart from that, it is currently difficult to determine whether deliveries are missing because they were stuck at sea, in a port or due to the rail strike, it said. Rather, the industry is concerned with whether the train drivers among its approximately one million employees get to work on time.

According to the will of the federal government, 25 percent of all goods should actually be transported by rail by 2030. In the previous year, the share actually fell from 19 percent to 17.5 percent. The private railways, which are part of the European Railways Network (NEE) and which, according to their own account, already drive almost 60 percent of freight traffic, were angry about the gloomy scenario painted by the BDI before the strike. The freight railways ensure the supply of industry and trade as they do every day, wrote NEE chairman Ludolf Kerkeling to the BDI. 60 percent of German rail freight traffic is not on strike, this traffic is running according to plan, and private companies have "occasionally" taken over services for DB Cargo.

The Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik (Federal Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics) also refrains from malice and refers to the reliability of the existing infrastructure. “Logistics is able to react to disruptions in the supply chain at short notice,” says managing director Niels Beuck. In the case of single-wagon transport, however, i.e. trains made up of wagons from different companies, DB Cargo continues to play a dominant role - switching to private providers is more difficult there. He sees the greatest danger, however, in the potential loss of confidence in this mode of transport and the permanent relocation of goods from rail to road.

Dirk Engelhardt, spokesman for the board of directors of the leading logistics association BGL, said that the road could take over parts of the transport. Overall, however, the high demand for transport means that there is little free truck capacity available. Against the background of the strike, the need for close interlinking and smooth cooperation between all modes of transport is evident again.