Railway boss Lutz must go: A long overdue new beginning

Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz had been under the weather for some time. Last fall, his bold announcement of the S3 program, with which the CEO intended to get the ailing railway back on track by 2027, triggered a "deja vu" reflex for many. Didn't something like this happen in 2019 with the "Strong Rail" program, and with quite similar goals? Both times, there were big promises. Both times, however, the results were – and are – slow to materialize and fell far short of expectations.

Lutz, a business economist, is considered a numbers cruncher who has every detail in mind. He finds it harder to grasp the bigger picture. He started at Deutsche Bahn in corporate controlling and subsequently served as CFO for a long time. In this role, he certainly could have and should have put his money on the table earlier, if the money flowed so sparingly to Deutsche Bahn during the many years of the CSU's transport ministership. And if, as a result, the company's rudimentary, basic tasks were simultaneously neglected. This is how he became a player.

The RND newsletter from the government district. Every Thursday.

By subscribing to the newsletter, I agree to the advertising agreement .

Of course, the dilapidated rail network isn't primarily Richard Lutz's fault. But few now trust him to turn the company around, given its complex structures and its difficulty in controlling them. Not even the Minister of Transport.

He wants a fresh start with a new federal rail strategy. And for Schnieder, this includes a more streamlined corporate structure and a leaner staff structure. It's quite possible, then, that Lutz won't be the only one on the large DB Group Executive Board to step down.

The coalition agreement also announced possible changes regarding the supervisory board. Here, too, there is a close phalanx of SPD and EVG members, which not everyone, especially on the CDU/CSU side, likes. So, there could be changes here as well.

And the testing isn't over yet. Schnieder also wants to take a close look at the principle of the general renovation – and make adjustments if necessary. The most extensive of the 41 projects planned by Deutsche Bahn by the mid-2030s began two weeks ago: The Berlin-Hamburg line, which is expected to be completely closed for nine months, will be a kind of litmus test.

The diversions for long-distance traffic are manageable – but freight traffic is already struggling with diversion problems and long wait times along the route. And the tens of thousands of regional commuters who have to switch to buses instead will need nerves of steel to endure travel times that are sometimes twice as long.

Perhaps the head of the railway was simply too far removed from these very concrete problems.