Our post "The silence of the trains" explained the German train noise phenomenon of people complaining ever more about train noise while the actual levels have steadily declined.
In recent weeks, the city of Mainz near Frankfurt, Germany, has taken the silence of the trains to new heights: no trains at all. Well, some trains are still running but long distance trains are being re-routed, and the number of commuter trains is down by around 50 per cent.
This is not due to successful noise complaints, it is due to vacation days and sick days.
Deutsche Bahn, the rail operator, is experiencing a staff shortage in control centers across the country but in particular in Mainz. Since Mainz is a critical node, things have been bad.
When we arrived in Germany, we did so with the image of a dense, sound, well functioning railroad system. Reality has been less impressive, although the system is still pretty neat by American standards.
Deutsche Bahn has undergone substantial changes with deregulation, the integration of the former East German railroad and the privatisation of the system.
Employees used to be civil servants, and while many of the older workers still enjoy that well paid job for life status, everybody hired since privatisation started is working under normal labor laws.
Wages went down, staff numbers did too, and lo and behold, critical shortages occurred, with the virtual shutdown of the Mainz operations the most visible crisis to date.
The chaos in Mainz is down to a little more than a handful of highly specialized workers, the system administrators of the switching centers if you will.
The fact that Deutsche Bahn is unable to maintain normal staffing levels is getting attention by politicians in the final weeks of the election campaign, so the media finally have something to talk about which is of relevance to the ordinary citizen.
Will political attention make a difference? Once people are back from vacation and have recovered from their illness, we are sure someone will claim credit for trains running on time once more.
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