The European rail freight sector has been watching the escalating wage dispute between the GDL and Deutsche Bahn (DB) with bewilderment. After 2-3 days of strikes in December and at the beginning of January, the GDL has now announced a 6-day strike from today (23 January), which in our view is completely disproportionate and will in turn have a significant impact on rail freight transport. This comes at a time when rail freight transport is already in a very critical situation due to the major infrastructure problems in Germany. (....)