The additional billions that the federal government has made available to the railway in recent years have hardly accelerated the renovation of the rail network.

Instead, they have driven up prices in the construction and railway industries in particular, according to a study by the Ifo Institute led by railway expert Felix Berschin, which was reported on by the "Tagesspiegel" (Thursday edition). This is particularly controversial because Deutsche Bahn is currently requesting €148 billion from the federal government's special infrastructure fund—three-eighths of the total. In the study, the consultant used Deutsche Bahn's annual reports to examine how much primary investment Deutsche Bahn made in tracks, switches, bridges, and overhead lines between 2006 and 2024.

The result: The amount of installed capacity increased by only around 21 percent between 2011 and 2024. However, the federal government and the responsible railway subsidiary DB InfraGO invested more than four times as much money last year as in 2011. "Rail construction prices have thus risen almost twice as much as road construction," Berschin told the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper. This is demonstrated by a comparison with corresponding construction price indices. The cost explosion cannot therefore be explained by general inflation in construction prices following the coronavirus crisis and the war in Ukraine. The industry expert finds it striking that the construction of new signaling technology and bridges, in particular, became significantly more expensive as early as 2018. Due to the intense climate protection debates, politicians began to provide significantly more funding for the railways at that time. By 2018, however, railway construction prices had only increased by 25 percent compared to 2010. From Berschin's point of view, there is some evidence that the railway and construction industries would have used the increased government investment to achieve higher margins - for example in signaling technology, where there are only two major suppliers in Germany: Siemens and Hitachi.