2024-07-16 14:39:49
The railway will be renovating the Riedbahn line for several months. Commuters will have to switch to buses. Dozens of other major projects will follow in the coming months and years.
The major project starts: The complete closure of the Riedbahn between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim is the start of a comprehensive wave of renovation work at Deutsche Bahn.
From Monday evening at 11 p.m. until mid-December, the 74 kilometers will be completely closed; tracks, switches and signal boxes are on the construction plan, as are the train stations along the route. Regional and suburban trains will be completely replaced by buses during this time, and long-distance traffic and freight traffic will be diverted.
The fall is great, because the Riedbahn is one of the most important routes in Germany. More than 300 regional, long-distance and freight trains travel there every day – but recently there has also been a disruption every day. This is why it is the “most difficult corridor”, says Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
But the railway also has ambitious plans beyond the Riedbahn, which are likely to be noticeable to passengers in the coming years. An overview.
From Tuesday to mid-August the ICE high-speed line between Cologne and Frankfurt closed due to construction work. However, this closure is not even part of the general renovation. Nevertheless, according to the railway, travelers must prepare for train cancellations and delays of between 40 and 90 minutes. As the trains are being diverted, the Siegburg/Bonn, Montabaur and Limburg Süd stops will be cancelled. They can be reached by replacement bus services. In the four weeks, 70 kilometers of tracks and 13 switches on the route are to be renewed.
The federal government and the railways understand the term “general renovation” to mean a plan concluded last year to renovate a number of main routes not “while the wheels are rolling”, as is usually the case, i.e. during ongoing operations, but during a full closure lasting several months. A total of 41 routes were selected for this purpose, and work is to be carried out on them by 2031.
Enormous sums of money have been earmarked for this. The renovation of the Riedbahn alone is expected to cost 1.3 billion euros. A total of 27 billion euros has been earmarked for the general renovation of the railway.
The next general renovation will take place from August 2025 on the Route Hamburg – Berlin This will take nine months. Construction will also begin on the Emmerich – Oberhausen route next year. There will be several scheduled partial closures here. From 2026, the focus will be on the route network around Koblenz and Cologne. These include the Route Hagen – Wuppertal – Colognedie Route Troisdorf – Koblenz and the Route Koblenz – Wiesbaden.
Even before the measures have started, there are critical voices. The Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) spoke of a “first tough test for the industry”. The start of the general renovation is a “significant step towards improving both rail passenger and freight transport”. But the full closure could become a problem.
In particular, the replacement rail service with buses, as planned on the Riedbahn, is stirring up doubts. The chairman of the passenger association Pro Bahn, Detlef Nuss, fears that this will scare away rail customers: “It is certainly to be feared that some people […] still switch to the car for now”.
Minister Wissing, on the other hand, is optimistic. “It is well prepared, the construction industry has the capacity, the materials are there. So there is no reason why it shouldn’t work,” said Wissing on “Deutschlandfunk”. The construction industry in particular has recently also expressed criticism. While the Riedbahn renovation is on schedule, there are no reliable commitments for the remaining routes, said the general manager of the German Construction Industry Association (HDB), Tim-Oliver Müller, to “Welt am Sonntag”.