German rail freight association Die Güterbahnen sees ‘dark clouds’ in the rail renovation plan proposed by DB and the federal government. The association identifies a number of issues in the June 2022 plan that it expects to hinder rail traffic disproportionately.
The renovation plan aims to renovate 40 rail corridors that total over 4,000 kilometres of rail, or 15 per cent of the entire German rail network. It envisions each corridor to undergo renovation during an intensive 5-month construction period before 2030. Die Güterbahnen, initially supportive of the plan, is now seeing ‘dark clouds’ on the horizon.
Dark clouds
According to Die Güterbahnen, the costs of the plan are ‘exploding’. Works on the Frankfurt-Mannheim ‘Riedbahn’ line, estimated at 500 million euros, are not projected to reach over a billion euros. At the same time, the federal government wants to limit federal funding that was allocated to the existing rail network up to 2027.
Moreover, the association states that five out of nine currently planned construction corridors will already cause interruptions beyond the intended five months. Trains will have to be rerouted for an additional 18 months. Lastly, there is not enough capacity for diversions, potentially causing problems for two thirds of all corridors.
Clash with DB
Die Güterbahnen says that it has clashed with DB on two corridors in particular. The Hamburg-Hannover route was to be closed in 2026, a move that was supported by the association. This measure has now been postponed, but the three-year delay will not be used to fulfill a 2015 agreement to expand the railway’s capacity. The association says it has requested DB, the federal government and the Niedersachsen region to use the time to expand the line.
Secondly, Die Güterbahnen is dissatisfied with the proposed diversion routes that DB InfraGO has proposed for the closure of the rail line through Passau to Austria. DB believes that the industry should cancel nearly half of the 130 daily freight trains, according Die Güterbahnen.
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