German railway networking shrinking
Nowhere else in Europe have rail networks been as severely cut back as in Germany and Poland. Germany's federal rail network has shrunk by 16 percent since 1990 – despite years of increasing passenger numbers and growth in the rail freight sector. This means that Germany “takes one of the top positions in the European negative list,” according to a statement put out by the German Pro-Rail Alliance (Allianz pro Schiene) on Tuesday in Berlin. “Network contraction has only been worse in Poland, with cut backs of 26 percent,” said Pro-Rail Alliance managing director Dirk Flege. Other European states reduced the size of their national rail networks by a much lower percentage during the period between 1990 and 2005. A few states such as Switzerland have even increased the size of their networks. “With the rising price of petrol and the predicted growth in freight transport, we will come to bitterly regret every single kilometre of track that has been lost. Governments and parliaments must change policies quickly and halt material loss by starting a programme of investments,” demanded Flege. http://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/english/Network-contraction-has-only-been-worse-in-Poland.html

Looking at the data over a longer time may level the playing field somewhat. In Poland, a lot of lines were kept in service until a few years ago, while in Germany, many comparable lines were already closed in the 1960s and 1970s. Other countries have gone through eras of severe cut-backs as well (e.g. the UK in the 1960s).

A lot of lines closing in germany are ones in the former east which have lost all their traffic since unification as people had access to cars and not have to sit on a massive waiting list for a trabbi. Germany still has many more lines than another country I can list. They have never suffered anything close to beaching cuts we had here in the UK with whole towns without a rail connection, and in fact still build lines and light railway lines, unlike again the UK where its guided busways or nothing. When I first read that statement I thought, mmmm but if the UK closed any more lines down there would be nothing left. SJ

Shrinking Mileage
- does "shrinking mileage" always equal "shrinking service"? -sometimes additional problems can be caused by how and where the rails are utilized. For example, mileage usable as commuter rail has been well preserved, and rural branch passenger service often closed. -in general, Deutsche Bahn has let the Laender subsidize local commuter service, which is still in good shape, and focused its main efforts on ICE express trains aimed at the businessmen and upper tier of travellers. (Do they think they are running an airline? ) What has been largely discontinued or reduced is the large number of interregional trains which made such a seamless web of German rail service. It is still easy, even easier to get from one major city to another. Far more difficult to get from one medium sized town to another, if it involves going cross country or across the borders of each Land. -Deutsche Bahn also seems to be acting more like a large real estate company, selling off the nation's rail patrimony for short term budgetary advantages, and less like a planning agency figuring out how to enhance rail transportation for the twenty-first century. -it is not just the number of miles, but how those miles are used, which makes the difference. Roger

In comparative terms, the closing of smaller branchlines has very little effect on the overall profit/loss of the network. They are often a political pawn used to 'show' that the network needs to take drastic steps but in reality only hurts the local communities and hardly benefit the main operator's profit/loss margins. Parallels with the UK are invidious as our networks developed rather differently however we are now counting cost of Beeching as roads become clogged and changing demographics have left quite sizeable communities without access to the rail. Even more worrying is the change in priorities over fossil fuels have now found that most domestic coal producing areas are completely without rail access. This latter problem is shared with Germany.

Interestingly, Czech Railways (České dráhy), who have an extremely dense network (0.12km/km2, slightly denser than Belgium), returned a profit last year. Yet the railway goes against that which we might consider a modern network, loco hauled being the norm on main lines (and not even push-pull), all but village halts are staffed, and the freight looks like that of Germany 20 years ago, with short trip workings and lots of shunting. And how the trains attract customers I don't know, all except the Eurocities are filthy and antiquated, and timekeeping lax. So maybe the secret is a dense network, meaning anyone can get anywhere by rail? It does apparantly go against the grain, yet it works.

Rail Networks
-another factor which relates to railroads is the original geography of the area being served. In both England and France, historical events produced a great concentration of people and activities in London and Paris. The early roads and later railroads radiated out from a central point. German history left the country very polycentric. Berlin is a relative latecomer. Germany had many regional middle sized cities, a great scattering, rather than one or two main points. The original rail network was connected those many diverse points. By concentrating on a few main express routes, this earlier netwoek is being discarded. Perhaps the East is a better model than British Rail or the SNCF. Roger

Have just returned from a driving hol in eastern Germany, Dresden, Meissen, Eisenach, Weimar etc ect. Spent much of the time OFF the motorways, staying in small town/village hotels. It was difficult to travel more than a few miles without seeing railway embankments, bridge piers, cuttings, blocked tunnel mouths etc. all with no track. Many of these were local and branch lines which had less and less use after unification. Almost on-topic, fascinating to see.