| > Germany's railway (DB - Deutsche Bahn) has been privatized This… isn't true. Deutsche Bahn AG is a private company, yes, but its 100% owned by the federal government. > they make a profit on long-distance high-speed routes DB Fernverkehr AG (the long-distance subsidiary) do this by operating them on an entirely commercial basis: they make a profit in part because they only run services that are profitable. The same is true of the companies competing on long-distance services (which are admittedly relatively few and far between, undoubtedly in part because of the huge start-up costs). > Local routes are purchases service from a variety of smaller local train companies that sprung up, and also from DB. Here's where it gets complicated: this depends on the state (within Germany) and how they arrange public transport. The primary services are typically put out to tender (and how differs between the states) and these aren't necessarily run by DB (through its Regio subsidiary) as DB Regio has lost a number of bids. At the same time, even on track, there's far more competition when it comes to profitable routes, as various local train companies as you mention have started competing. |
Which does not change the fact that it's been made into a private company, and that their mission is profit. Ever since that happened we've been hearing it in the news whenever they announced their results, apparently the whole country, or at least media and the government care very much about it. So they are not like a government agency at all, they really are a business.
So OPs statement is not true, competition (on the local routes) and profitability very much drive DB. That was my point, in the context of the comment I replied to.