Half-yearly review: Replacement transport on the Riedbahn has started well

For a few days now, there have been significant restrictions for passengers due to major renovation work on the Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim – but the replacement service has started off well from the railway’s point of view. The diversion and replacement concepts are working well, the company said before announcing its financial results for the first half of the year. “Up to 16,000 passengers are travelling on the replacement service every day.”

The deployment of around 150 new replacement buses is running smoothly and local and long-distance traffic on the diversion routes is stable, it said. The construction work is on schedule, but it only started ten days ago. In the first few days, noise barriers were put up, overhead lines were removed and the first tracks were renewed. The modernization is to be completed by the timetable change on September 15. Until then, the section will be closed.

Railway in difficult waters

By renovating the Riedbahn and another 40 corridors in the coming years, Deutsche Bahn wants to gradually get the outdated infrastructure back into shape. The company is in difficult waters. Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz is presenting the latest business figures today. He is anything but satisfied with the punctuality and reliability of his own company.

Only just under 63 percent of long-distance trains were running without major delays in the first six months of this year. Deutsche Bahn has already missed its annual target for 2024. The situation is also difficult financially. On the one hand, the mountain of debt amounted to around 34 billion euros by the end of last year. Due to unsecured financing from the federal government, Deutsche Bahn also made advance payments on infrastructure projects in 2023. As a result, it made an operating loss before interest and taxes (EBIT) of almost one billion euros.