Rail traffic
The biggest rail remediation project started in Germany
The route between Berlin and Hamburg remains completely closed for nine months. The official starting signal for the general renovation is halfway in Ludwigslust.
The railway gave the official starting signal for the general renovation of the Hamburg-Berlin railway line. The CEO of the rail infrastructure company Infrago, Philipp Nagl, named the project at an event in Ludwigslust (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) a “real effort”.
In the next nine months, 165 kilometers of tracks and almost 250 course are to be renewed. 28 train stations along the 278 kilometer corridor are modernized according to the railway. Six signal boxes are to be rebuilt and another 19 renewed. The construction work should cost 2.2 billion euros. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, Ulrich Lange, spoke in Ludwigslust of up to 2.5 billion euros.
Contrary to the original planning, the digital European Guide system ETCS is not installed in the course of the general renovation. According to Nagl’s words, the signal boxes should be made fit. According to him, it would have been too complex and expensive to operate the new and the previous conventional system in parallel. Many trains could not go with ETCs yet. Now only ETCS will be installed “in coordination with the industry”. Nagl did not call a specific point in time. The capacity of railway lines is intended to increase with the digital train influence system.
Deriration and replacement buses
Long -distance transport between Berlin and Hamburg will be diverted via Stendal and Uelzen by the end of April 2026. The trains then take an average of 45 minutes longer. ICE and IC trains also only drive once an hour instead of every 30 minutes as before. Freight transport is also widely redirected.
There are many connections in regional transport or only drive on sections. Affected commuters can switch to replacement traffic by bus. The replacement traffic started early Friday morning, even if regional traffic should be traveling as usual into the evening.
“Decade of renovations”
The Berlin – Hamburg railway line is one of the most important in Germany. According to NAGL, almost 500 trains last daily. The general renovation is intended to improve the condition of the route from the school grade 3.7 to 2.2.
Large construction sites will probably be preserved for rail passengers in Germany in the coming years. State Secretary Lange said: “We are in the rail infrastructure a decade ago.” By 2036, the renovation of the corridors is to be continued “bound to the funds”. In addition to the main routes as a focus, the area network should not get out of view, he warned. “The corridor is one thing. But to get to the corridor and the knots, people expect people punctual, reliable, safe connections.”
dpa
Source: Stern
