February 12, 2026, 1:30 pm | Read time: 6 minutes
A new directive aims to improve passenger comfort aboard Deutsche Bahn trains. However, what’s in the five-page document is causing discontent among train staff. This is especially after last week’s violent incident, where a train attendant was killed by a passenger.
The Deutsche Bahn directive F-W 711/2025 spans five pages. It is filled with sentences intended to enhance the onboard experience of their trains—at least for passengers. This is supposed to happen through genuinely improved service or by positively framing problems. There seems to be no mention of improvements for train staff. According to an article in the regional daily “Augsburger Allgemeine” and an open letter from the train drivers’ union GDL, the opposite seems to be the case.
Overview
The Directive F-W 711/2025
Today, long-distance train attendants are expected to fulfil multiple roles. They are expected to act as ticket inspectors, cleaning staff, waiters, cooks, on-site marketing managers, and security personnel all in one. This is explained by the daily newspaper, citing excerpts from Deutsche Bahn’s directive F-W 711/2025. According to the “Augsburger Allgemeine,” they have access to this document. It demands a “flawless condition” of all cars, including toilets, carpets, and trash cans. The train staff is responsible for this, and it should be done on their own initiative. According to the new directive, effective since December 2025, tasks also include collecting trash and regularly returning glasses and dishes from the cars to the onboard kitchen. If the dining car staff changes, the train manager must ensure the onboard restaurant remains open, writes the “Augsburger Allgemeine.”
Another point falling under the train manager’s responsibilities is the marketing of the onboard bistro. This is apparently explicitly regulated in the Bahn directive. For example, if the coffee machine is broken and the bistro cannot offer its numerous coffee variations, they should talk around it. According to the newspaper, an announcement should literally state: “Look forward to freshly brewed filter coffee.” There is no mention of the absence of other coffee varieties. Because: “We positively phrase restrictions in our gastronomic offerings,” the Bahn directive states. And further: “The train manager ensures that … the currently available offerings are specifically promoted through the gastronomic announcement. Individual missing foods or drinks are not mentioned.”
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Train Staff Are Outraged
The goal of the long-distance “Comfort” immediate program, according to the Bahn document, is to offer passengers “a travel experience characterized by positive announcements, maximum technical availability, and reliable onboard service that convinces.”
Improving service and comfort initially sounds good for passengers. However, the train staff is apparently anything but thrilled with the new Bahn directive. According to the newspaper, some Bahn employees wonder if those in the DB headquarters who wrote this have “ever seen a train from the inside.”
Although the tasks listed in the directive “have always been part of their job,” as a Bahn spokeswoman told TRAVELBOOK upon request. She explains: “For our onboard team (…) these guidelines provide security for their actions in daily work.” An “individual design, for example, of service announcements” is “expressly desired.”
The problem seems to be less about the tasks themselves and more about the lack of personnel to carry them out. Because the staff shortage is associated with a much larger problem.
Violence Against Train Employees
Besides the multitude of tasks, safety is currently a major focus for many Bahn employees. There are frequent insults and physical assaults on Deutsche Bahn employees. Just about a week ago, a train attendant on a regional express in Rhineland-Palatinate was punched so hard in the head by a man that he died shortly afterward from a brain hemorrhage. The 36-year-old Bahn employee had checked the ticket of the passenger, who was ten years younger, and wanted to remove him from the train because he didn’t have a ticket.
Following this incident, the German Train Drivers’ Union addressed Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla in an open letter. TRAVELBOOK has access to the letter. In the letter, the GDL states that the death was “not an isolated, unpredictable single event.” Rather, assaults, threats, and violence against train service employees have been known for years. The union describes the “continued practice of sparse staffing” as “alarming” and criticizes the “1:1 concept” in long-distance travel. According to this, only one train manager and one train attendant are responsible for an ICE. Sometimes there are even “1:0 staffing,” where a single employee is “solely responsible for operations, service, control, and handling conflict situations.” Given the violent situation, this is “unacceptable,” writes the union.
Instead, the GDL works councils of DB Fernverkehr AG demand a mandatory 1:2 minimum staffing in trains with nine or more cars. Having one person work alone in a train poses an “unacceptable risk to life and health” given the known risks. Solo work should not be allowed even in exceptional cases. Furthermore, the GDL demands more security personnel, data protection-compliant camera surveillance in trains, and widespread body cams.
The Bahn itself paints a slightly different picture. “Since April 2025, ticket checks on long-distance trains can generally be conducted by two people,” a Bahn spokeswoman told TRAVELBOOK. Train attendants are “deployed in pairs in long-distance travel.” In ICE trains, there are also two to four gastronomes during the onboard restaurant’s opening hours. “Additionally, uniformed officers of the federal and state police travel free of charge on DB Fernverkehr AG trains,” says the spokeswoman. She further explains that “additional security personnel are deployed in and on trains in national and international long-distance travel.” Apparently, this is not enough.
Security Summit on Friday
DB CEO Evelyn Palla has scheduled a security summit for Friday (February 13). According to the Bahn, representatives from the states, federal politics, the Federal Ministry of Transport, unions, the federal police, and the rail industry have been invited. “With this initiative for more security, the Bahn CEO wants to define short-term measures with all relevant actors,” says a statement from the Bahn. Additionally, they want to clarify the “long-term financing issue of security forces in regional and local transport, as their deployment is individually determined by transport contracts.”