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DB is organized as a business group and has over 500 subsidiaries. It describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world after Deutsche Post AG and is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. About two billion passengers are carried each year. DBAG has taken over the abbreviation and logo DB from the West German state railway Deutsche Bundesbahn, although it has modernised the logo, which is occasionally called "Dürrkeks" (after Heinz Dürr, the first chairman of the DB AG), a play on words meaning "meagre biscuit", referring to its shape and the sans-serif font, especially when compared to the older, more rounded Bundesbahn logo. Erik Spiekermann designed the new corporate font DB type. Originally DBAG was headquartered in Frankfurt am Main but moved to Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin in 1996, where it occupies a 26-story office tower designed by Helmut Jahn at the eastern end of the Sony Center and named BahnTower. As the lease was to expire in 2010, DB had announced plans to relocate to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and in 2007 a proposal for a new headquarters by 3XN Architects won an architectural competition also including Foster + Partners, Dominique Perrault and Auer + Weber. However, these plans have been put on hold and the BahnTower leased for at least three more years. A move to Hamburg was briefly considered in 2005, but these plans were abandoned after political pressure. |