The railway will be renovating 40 main routes in the coming years. This is intended to make rail transport more reliable again. Critics say that renovation alone is not enough to bring about a transport turnaround.
The German Transport Club (VCD) believes that the upcoming general renovation of Deutsche Bahn’s main routes is merely a step in the right direction, but not sufficient. “The general renovations alone will not give us more trains or a better rail network, only the so-called basic level of disruption on the heavily used routes will be significantly reduced,” said VCD chairwoman Kerstin Haarmann before the closure of the Frankfurt-Mannheim route this Monday.
In order to make the entire network fit for the future, the rail hubs in the big cities must be better developed and, above all, digitized. In addition, enough alternative routes are needed so that passenger and freight transport on the rails can continue even during repairs.
“Despite tight budgets, the railways cannot be cut back – on the contrary, we are calling for higher investments in railway expansion, digitalization and electrification, otherwise the transport transition cannot succeed. The originally promised 45 billion euros by 2027 would be a good start,” said Haarmann.
On the busy Frankfurt-Mannheim route, tracks, overhead lines, signals, switches, bridges and stations will be modernized by mid-December. Such a general renovation is planned for 40 heavily used corridors in Germany by 2030. Next year it will be the turn of the Hamburg-Berlin and Emmerich-Oberhausen sections.
Source: Stern
