Michael Mühlberg has now been working at VTG for an incredible 50 years. When he started his apprenticeship in 1973, Helmut Kohl had just been elected chairman of the CDU party and the entire world was talking about the Watergate scandal. Join us on a brief journey through time.
After 50 years in the railway business, it would have been fitting for Michael to start his retirement by taking a big, round-the-world trip on various trains with his wife. But it will actually “only” be a caravan tour.
On June 9, Michael also drove his camper to VTG’s company outing to say goodbye to a few of his fellow employees. Strictly speaking, his retirement won’t begin until June 30, 2023. But, until then, he’ll be using up his remaining vacation days.
Original career goal: Watchmaker
Michael looks back on a long career, which has been particularly marked by travel and a great deal of autonomy. It all began in 1973, when he started an apprenticeship to become a building fitter at Linke-Hofmann-Busch AG (part of Preussag AG, to which VTG had belonged since 1961) – at the tender age of 15.
“I actually wanted to become a watchmaker,” Michael says. “But we didn’t have any nearby, so I picked companies that were in my immediate surroundings.” The precision engineer in spirit became the opposite: a locksmith.
At this point, Michael realized that working 10-hour shifts on a piecework basis wasn’t something that he could manage in the long term – especially since freight wagons were also being built on two Saturdays a month. This prompted him to complete various advanced training courses and to eventually earn his master craftsman certificate in the early 1980s – on top of working full-time.
This was followed by positions in quality assurance, where he was responsible for testing wheelsets, and in work preparation, where his job was to get wagons ready to be repaired. And that’s also how Michael – who closely interacted with his colleagues – came into contact with VTG.
Switching directly to VTG
Michael never regretted his move to the VTG’s approval facility in Salzgitter in 1990 to work as a wagon acceptance inspector. There, he had to decide which repairs to make on wagons going into revision.
The questions he asked were: What needs to be done? How is it to be done? And how much can it cost? After all, while the workshops wanted to earn a lot, VTG wanted to pay as little as possible. To this end, Michael and his coworkers compiled a catalog of working hours.
“We listed and analyzed everything that could happen,” Michael says. The fact is that, in the long run, it would simply be too complicated to record each repair for every single car. This catalog is even used for pricing purposes to this day.
Always on the move
Since the revisions were performed at various workshops and the number of these workshops was gradually increasing, Michael was spending more and more time on the road to supervise these repair facilities. “I was always on the move,” Michael says looking back. “But all that change in 2002.”
At that time, fixed prices for repairs were introduced, and these were set by the head office in Hamburg. “Then just doing the final check wasn’t enough for me,” Michael adds. After talking with his supervisor, he decided to move to Hamburg to join the Service & Safety department – though he was still living in Salzgitter.
Michael continued to oversee the workshops and to be responsible for developments in maintenance. On top of that, beginning in 2005, he was also put in charge of auditing the workshops after Deutsche Bahn terminated the hiring contracts of the wagon keepers – with “auditing,” in this case, meaning that Michael checked to see whether the workshops had the right equipment and personnel. Michael was also in close contact with customers, from whom he regularly gathered feedback in the spirit of what could be called “complaint-driven innovation.”
“I actually wanted to become a watchmaker”
Just no office job
“I’ve always been able to work in a very free way,” Michael says. “And that’s also what kept me at VTG. You naturally receive recognition when something works. Plus, the work has become more humane with time, especially the working hours.”
For Michael, two things have always been crucial: not sitting in an office, and being able to pass on his knowledge to coworkers old and new – including as a mentor. That’s why, if needed, he will continue to offer his services to VTG after his retirement as a consultant. Titles aren’t something important to him. He says he’s just a simple wagon acceptance inspector, adding: “And I also don’t have any desire to be a big shot or master of such and such.”
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Pierre MALLICK
This post perfectly describes the professional, humble and pleasant man that Michael was. I met him for the first time 25 years ago in maintenance workshop. I have always enjoyed working with him, both as an inspector and as an auditor. I will keep very good memories of him. Thank you for this post