How much does DB Netz, its network subsidiary, favour DB's freight, local and long-distance subsidiaries?

ECONOMIST: German railways

According to Reviel Netz, a classicist at Stanford University who is working on the palimpsest, the original uncorrected diagrams suggest that Archimedes was more concerned with the mathematical arguments his geometry gave rise to than with the real-world behaviour of the objects he wrote about.

ECONOMIST: The Archimedes palimpsest

In theory, the presence of private shareholders in DB ML should reduce its ability to win special treatment from DB Netz, though Mr Mehdorn will, bizarrely, continue to head both DB and DB ML. The privatisation represents a step towards the British model, in which private firms run trains on a state-owned network.

ECONOMIST: German railways