The good news: the federal government and the railways are finally tackling the problem of the ailing rail network in Germany.
It is well known that many billions of euros will flow into infrastructure in the coming years.
The money is now being used more intelligently.
In the future, urgency and stronger bundling will be in the foreground.
The bottlenecks have priority – i.e. main routes around the large metropolitan areas, the failure of which has a negative effect on traffic in the entire track network.
The bad news: This is not without serious consequences for the company.
Passengers and goods transporters have to be prepared for the fact that delays, canceled trains and diversions remain loyal companions on every train journey.
Bahn boss Richard Lutz coined the term “growing pains” for this – and prepared customers for hard times.
They could last until the end of the decade.
That's how long the renovation of the "high-performance network" should take.
It is more than likely that some customers will lose their patience even before that.