Overview

• The recruits arrived in Germany in early August via an agency and begin their locomotive-driver apprenticeship in September in Kaltenkirchen.
• AKN’s course runs about a year, with roughly nine months of classroom instruction followed by three months of practical training on German operating and shunting rules.
• Candidates had to meet the same entry requirements as domestic trainees, including a school-leaving certificate, B1 German and medical fitness, and all reportedly hold university degrees.
• The company’s goal is to keep graduates beyond the apprenticeship, pairing technical learning with language courses and other integration offers.
• Schleswig-Holstein’s economy minister Claus Ruhe Madsen praised the approach, citing a prior Flensburg bus-driver pilot that produced some graduates but also saw dropouts.