Passenger train drivers in Germany walked off the job on Wednesday and vowed not to return for six days in a strike over working conditions and pay that was expected to halt most long-distance and commuter rail travel across the country.
The strike, the fourth for the national service in two months and the most significant in years, forced the main rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, to impose an emergency schedule with a “massive reduction” in service, said Anja Bröker, a spokeswoman for the company.
Only one in five long-distance intercity trains will roll until Monday night, the company said, and regional and commuter train service will be throttled back even more in some regions.
The walkout — which affects both passenger and freight service — comes at a difficult time for Germany, where the economy contracted 0.3 percent last year, the weakest performance among the 20 countries using the euro. According to the Federation of German Industries, the strike could cost industry as much as a billion euros, about $1.09 billion.
It is also expected to further tarnish the troubled reputation of the German train system, which suffers from aging rail infrastructure and failing rolling stock. A court decision that stopped the government using pandemic funds for green projects presents additional difficulties, because it could mean reduced funding for some infrastructure plans.
More broadly, the strike comes at a time of general dissatisfaction with the administration of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which is seen as out of touch. Although Mr. Scholz has been spared blame for the labor dispute — rail troubles precede his administration — it has added to the general sense that Germany is in a rut.
At Berlin’s cavernous, and unusually empty, central station, Bridge Markland, 62, an actor and puppeteer, had shown up early to make a train to Naumburg, a small town in the east where she was scheduled to perform Wednesday night. “It took me hours to rebook the ticket,” she said angrily.
“I try to use the train for environmental reasons,” she said, patting a large suitcase that held 10 puppets. “But then they really should function.”
Ms. Markland had to cancel one performance because of the strike, she said, adding: “If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.” She blamed the union for refusing to talk with the Deutsche Bahn before launching its latest strike. “I’m all for negotiations.”
Prince Isi Okosun, originally from Nigeria, moved to the German capital eight years ago and said commuting there was normally efficient: “When the trains run, Berlin is actually well connected.”
On Wednesday, however, gaps in the emergency timetable were stretching a 30-minute trip home into nearly two hours. “The government should do something about this,” he said.
The drivers’ walkout is scheduled to run through the weekend, meaning that it will affect more leisure travelers than other recent strikes, which took place during the week and lasted no longer than three days. Drivers of cargo trains started the strike on Tuesday evening.
Deutsche Bahn said it would try to attach extra carriages to the trains that ran, while car rental agencies and competing commercial train and bus companies have registered a surge in use.
About 7.3 million people ride Deutsche Bahn trains in Germany every day, and the number is growing as more travelers switch to rail amid concerns about climate change. The operator’s trains also move more than 600,000 tons of freight each day, according to federal data.
The most contentious issue in the labor dispute is the number of hours required of drivers on a shift schedule. The union has demanded a 35-hour week, down from 38 hours; Deutsche Bahn has offered 37.
The union is also demanding a pay increase of €555 a month for all its workers, an 18 percent increase on starting salaries. Deutsche Bahn’s latest offer, which the union rejected, would be a nearly 13 percent increase for workers on the full 38-hour week.
The strike was announced on Monday by Claus Weselsky, the chairman of the G.D.L., a union that represents German train drivers. Mr. Weselsky, in a terse news conference, said negotiations had broken down and accused the chief negotiator for Deutsche Bahn of “trickery and deception,” especially around its latest offer.
Mr. Weselsky said that his union was pushing for changes to make the job more attractive to younger people.
On Monday, Volker Wissing, Germany’s transportation minister, criticized the strike, saying that the dispute was taking on an “increasingly destructive tone” and expressing “zero sympathy” for the union.
Two main unions represent rail workers in Germany. The bigger one, EVG, settled a pay dispute with Deutsche Bahn last year, agreeing to increases that amounted to roughly €410 a month and a one-time tax-free bonus worth about $3,100.
That deal made Deutsche Bahn more willing to play hardball with the smaller G.D.L., to which most drivers belong, according to Christian Böttger, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin who studies rail transportation.
Markus Hecht, a rail expert at the Technical University of Berlin, said he was worried that the six-day strike would hinder Deutsche Bahn in attracting riders and cargo, one of the stated climate goals of Mr. Scholz’s three-party coalition. If the rail system was seen as unreliable, he said, travelers and businesses might look elsewhere.
“It will have a huge impact that goes beyond just those days,” Professor Hecht said.
The cargo stoppage is being felt beyond Germany, said Ms. Bröker, the Deutsche Bahn spokeswoman, most notably in Scandinavia, with the big seaports in neighboring Netherlands and Belgium also affected. The freight train service is working on emergency transport for especially important deliveries for power plants or refineries.
