{"id":18379,"date":"2026-07-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/german-rail-freight-falls-5-4-in-2025-as-db-cargo-declines\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:00:00","slug":"german-rail-freight-falls-5-4-in-2025-as-db-cargo-declines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/german-rail-freight-falls-5-4-in-2025-as-db-cargo-declines\/","title":{"rendered":"German rail freight falls 5.4% in 2025 as DB Cargo declines."},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Germany\u2019s rail freight performance fell by 5.4% in 2025, according to the Federal Network Agency, Germany\u2019s regulator for rail, energy, telecoms and postal markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The decline was driven mainly by DB Cargo. The Federal Network Agency said the company\u2019s operating performance fell by around 20%, while its transport performance dropped by more than 21%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Competing freight operators took over part of the lost volume. Their share of Germany\u2019s rail freight market increased to 67%, while federally owned operators accounted for 33%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Total rail operating performance in Germany stagnated at around 1.125bn train-path km in 2025. Growth in passenger rail offset the decline in freight, with regional passenger rail operating performance up 1.5% and long-distance passenger rail almost unchanged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Passenger transport remained at a high level. Regional rail recorded 65bn passenger-km, broadly stable year on year, while long-distance passenger rail increased by 3.5% to 49bn passenger-km.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Federal Network Agency also reported a continued rise in delays on the DB InfraGO network over a four-year period. It identified strong growth in delays attributed to train sequencing and infrastructure managers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the Riedbahn, Germany\u2019s first corridor to complete a general renewal, infrastructure- and construction-related delay events fell from around 15,800 to 9,200 in the 12 months after reopening. Delay minutes on the route fell from 143,400 to 95,700, a reduction of 33%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Delays linked to signalling and interlocking systems and switches on the Riedbahn fell by 20% to 30%. The regulator said these improvements remained well below the values originally targeted, while delays linked to telecommunications systems and level crossing protection systems increased after the works.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report also included first results from a vehicle-holder survey on ETCS equipment. More than 550 vehicle holders reported around 20,000 traction vehicles, powered service vehicles and driving trailers approved for the German network.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of around 17,350 operational vehicles with train protection systems, vehicles registered to German holders had a low ETCS equipment rate. The Federal Network Agency reported 1,860 ETCS-equipped vehicles among German holders, equal to 13% of the relevant fleet, with most vehicles still requiring installation or upgrades.<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Germany\u2019s rail freight performance fell by 5.4% in 2025, according to the Federal Network Agency, Germany\u2019s regulator for rail, energy, telecoms and postal markets.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gruzingeo.com\/ka\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}