Germany: Steffen Bilger Forced to Change Train Car at Start of Summer Trip

At the start of his summer trip to northern Germany, Steffen Bilger had to change train cars, according to a report. Bilger was at Hamburg's main station on Monday. Hamburg had recently been in the headlines mainly due to renovation work and delays.

Now the new Federal Transport Minister Steffen Bilger (CDU) apparently experienced problems with train travel firsthand at the beginning of his summer trip. On the ICE from Berlin's main station to Hamburg, Bilger had to change cars in the morning, as the "Rheinische Post" reported. In the second-class section of the train, the air conditioning had failed, and the car was evacuated and subsequently locked.

During the two-day trip, Bilger plans to inform himself about safety on trains and cleanliness at stations in Pinneberg and Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein. Over the weekend, he announced that he would align the bonus payments of Deutsche Bahn (DB) managers with targets set by the federal government, such as punctuality. Currently agreed with the railway is a punctuality rate of 70 percent of trains in long-distance service by 2029, Bilger told "Bild am Sonntag. One hundred percent will "not be achievable in the foreseeable future.