INTRO: Gordon Wiseman takes a look at some of Germany’s up-and-coming passenger operators
BY THE START of the summer timetable in May 2000, around 3500 km of regional lines will have passed from German Railway to the local sector since regionalisation started in the early 1990s. This compares with 896 km when Railway Gazette International published an initial review of the programme in RG 6.97 p385. Official German Transport Operators’ Association figures show that at January 1 1999 there were 165 independent operators, 131 in the western Länder and 34 in the east. Operators range from local minnows to acquisitive multinationals such as Vivendi.
Placing the resulting diverse forms of operation into categories is all but impossible, but several distinct patterns are emerging. Some ownership has passed from DB to local authorities, leading to multi-tier structures in some cases. The company name or branding seen on the train does not always identify the legal operator. Perhaps the most complex is Hessische Landesbahn. HLB is 100% owned by Land Hessen, and it supplies the rolling stock for subsidiaries such as Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn, Frankfurt-K
