Love Those Rails

As vacationing West Germans flocked to and from their cities last week, 150 extra trains rolled across the country between the Baltic coast and the Alps. Although Germany has one of the highest automobile densities in Europe--one car for every eight people--travel still means trains. And trains in Germany mean Deutsche Bundesbahn, the federal railway whose reasonable fares, remarkable luxury and religiously on-time operation make it a favorite of the German people. With 19,000 track miles, the Bundesbahn is not only one of the West's largest railway systems--it was put together in 1920 from a dozen-odd separate lines--but one of its finest.

Arrow with Amenities. One reason for its reputation is the $750 million-- or 23% of its $3.2 billion revenue--that the Bundesbahn pours each year into modernizing its tracks, trains and service. Its 9,000 electric and diesel locomotives glide in jolt-free quiet over continuously welded tracks. Its 100-m.p.h., all-first-class superexpresses, like the Dortmund-Munich Rheinpfeil (Rhine Arrow), offer such amenities as a four-course dinner for less than $2.50, worldwide telephone service, and multilingual secretaries at $1.50 an hour. There is even a female Silberputzer (silver cleaner) to keep chrome polished and to dust the aisles. On regular expresses, second-class passengers can count on spotlessly clean cars and hot meals in a diner. Last year 20,000 motorists stowed both themselves and their autos aboard overnight trains, slept their way to their destinations. No wonder the railroad hauls 45% of Germany's intercity passengers (v. 3% in the U.S.) and that a recent poll found that 53% of all Germans prefer trains to planes (28%) or autos (15%) for long trips.

Despite such popular performance, the railroad suffered a $100 million deficit last year. The proud boss of the Bundesbahn's 470,000 employees, President Heinz Maria Oeftering, 60, a Munich-born onetime law professor, blames the loss not on the expensive extra service but on the "wholly extraneous expenditures" that the government makes the railroad bear. Although its long-haul passenger trains make money and lucrative freight accounts form 60% of its revenues, the Bundesbahn has to carry such privileged patrons as commuters, students, workers and war veterans at government-dictated cut rates (up to 96% off). An even greater drain is its welfare costs: 40% of salaries for pensions v. a German norm of 18% to 22%. Despite the Bundesbahn's $250 million-a-year government subsidy, Oeftering argues: "It's not the federal government that subsidizes the railways; it's the federal railways that subsidize the government."

Model in the Yard. In a drive to get his railroad out of the red, Oeftering last week was preparing a plan to pare its welfare load, revamp its crazy-quilt fare structure, and get fresh government capital to retire its debt, which costs $130 million a year in interest. His plan will probably be derailed by Chancellor Ludwig Erhard's administration, but Oeftering hopes to gain at least some mileage. Battling to make the state road run more like private industry, he relaxes from his work in the basement of his modest Frankfurt home, where he has set up a giant model railroad. This one Oeftering runs just the way he likes.

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