Rail traffic
Train satisfied with start on Riedbahn despite disruptions
Since the end of construction work on the Riedbahn, there have been frequent disruptions on the route. Not unusual, says the railway – the teething problems should be resolved in a few weeks.
Even if there are still occasional problems, the railway is largely satisfied with the restart of train traffic on the newly renovated Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim. “It is completely normal that disruptions can occur at the beginning in a major project of this size with hundreds of new systems and thousands of kilometers of newly laid cables,” said the head of the rail infrastructure company InfraGo, Philipp Nagl.
“We are currently driving the route under full load and eliminating the last sources of error as quickly as possible. This is part of every commissioning,” he emphasized. The teething problems should be resolved in the next few weeks after the extensive renovation of the busy route.
Unrestricted train operations since December 24th
The Riedbahn was completely closed for around five months until mid-December for modernization. Since December 24th, all trains have been running according to the new timetable. Since then, there have been repeated disruptions, for example due to signal box problems or defective cables. According to the railway, these have only had an impact on train operations in isolated cases. Many sources of error can only be identified during ongoing operation. Little by little they should now be corrected and eliminated.
Overall, the condition of the corridor has fundamentally improved with the renovation, it was said. Old technology that was prone to failure has been completely replaced. The Riedbahn was also equipped with the digital train control technology ETCS. Once the technology is put into operation, trains will soon be traveling at 200 kilometers per hour on this section again, instead of the current 160 kilometers per hour.
dpa
Source: Stern
