More expensive tickets, fewer trains: anger over cost-cutting plans for long-distance rail travel

More expensive tickets, fewer trains. Anger over cost-cutting plans for long-distance rail services. 14.09.2025, 05:00

Smaller cities will have to worry about their ICE connections in the future. At the same time, rail passengers are facing surcharges of ten percent on tickets. The combination of fewer services and higher prices is not going down well.

Deutsche Bahn's plans to reduce long-distance services and significantly increase fares for ICE and Intercity trains are being met with opposition from politicians and consumer advocates. "Passengers have no understanding for the impending price increase and route reduction in long-distance services," Luigi Pantisano, transport policy spokesman for the Left Party in the Bundestag, told the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper. "Many people can no longer afford ticket price increases of more than ten percent."

Previously, Martin Burkert, head of the railway union EVG, had warned that Deutsche Bahn would soon increase long-distance ticket prices by ten percent. This is due to an increase in network usage fees, known as track access charges. As a result, the railway subsidiary DB Fernverkehr is short €95 million this year, explained Burkert, who is also deputy chairman of the German Railway Supervisory Board.

The loss-making rail subsidiary DB Fernverkehr also plans to cancel many ICE and Intercity connections to tourist destinations and smaller cities in 2026. The "Tagesspiegel" newspaper cites internal railway documents as evidence. According to these documents, among other things, only half as many long-distance trains will run to Lake Constance and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the future. In the north, long-distance trains will no longer serve Lübeck at all, and Kiel will also lose direct connections to Cologne, Munich, and Basel. The railway denied any "clear-cutting" but admitted that there will be "adjustments." All information will be published at the end of September.

Pro Bahn sees the Federal Government as responsible

Schleswig-Holstein's Transport Minister Claus Ruhe Madsen criticized the plans. "We are obviously not satisfied with this," the CDU politician told the newspaper. They expect significant improvements. However, they also recognize the economic and infrastructural challenges facing DB Fernverkehr. "However, as the state government, we will continue to work toward ensuring that our state is optimally connected to long-distance transport."

Lukas Iffländer, deputy head of the passenger association Pro Bahn, blames politicians for the impending service cuts. He argues that the federal government, as the owner, must determine "which long-distance services are desired and how they will be financed." Instead, the federal government is using the excuse that the state-owned Deutsche Bahn, as a stock corporation, operates long-distance services independently and therefore has sole control over the route network.