By the end of 2030, Deutsche Bahn plans to renovate a total of 41 high -loaded routes. To do this, it partially completely blocks the sections – and at a high price.
The Deutsche Bahn was on time. Probably also because everyone looked at the Riedbahn project. The transport minister, travelers, management. The renovation of the highest loaded rail connection in the German rail network had to work – on schedule.
In five months, 70 kilometers of rails were renovated between Mannheim and Frankfurt am Main. Due to the temporarily full closure, at least 16 future closures of the route could be avoided in the coming years, the group said.
200 million euros more expensive than planned
But that apparently had a higher price than planned: instead of 1.3 billion euros, the renovation cost 1.5 billion euros in the end. That is 15 percent more than planned. According to a rail spokeswoman, up to 20 percent supplementary costs are expected in construction projects of this type. The Riedbahn was in a much worse condition than the railway expected – hence the additional costs.
The railway expert Christian Böttger from the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (HTW) is not very surprising that the costs have increased: “With the Riedbahn-Sanoration, the railway suddenly asked a lot of services, while the offer has remained the same due to the shortage of skilled workers. This leads to massive cost increases.”
For the civil engineer and chair of the Association of German Railway Engineers, Birgit Milius from the TU Berlin, the work around the clock could have been the significantly driving cost factor. You can quickly fall into the “money trap,” said the civil engineer.
Riedbahn was only the start
The next major project will follow from August: the renovation of the 278 -kilometer route between Hamburg and Berlin. A mammoth project over nine months until the end of April 2026. Nowhere in Germany is more people commute between two cities.
The route is to be paralyzed, new tracks are laid, soft, overhead lines, signal box and several train stations. In addition, there should be new overtaking options so that faster ICE trains are not slowed down by slower goods or regional trains.
“Germany's largest replacement traffic”
Up to 65 ICE trips remained every day, the client announces – 36 of which as a direct connection with a longer driving time of at least 45 minutes, because trains are also diverted via Hanover. For comparison: Around 230 trains in freight and passenger transport currently use the connection every day.
In particular, those people who live along the route have to do without train driving. Some train stations are no longer hit. For the victims, it is then said: Bus run in “Germany's largest replacement traffic”, as the Deutsche Bahn puts it. After all: the rail replacement traffic with specially purchased buses recently worked very well when it comes to the Riedbahn full closure.
41 projects by the end of 2030
According to the principle of “from a cast”, the 41 most important and highest loaded routes in Germany are to be renewed by the end of 2030. With the Hagen-Wuppertal-Köln connection (start of construction 2026), or the route between Lehrte near Hanover and Berlin, from 2027.
A total of 4,000 kilometers of the 34,000 kilometer rail network are concerned. They are neuralgic points, so -called high -performance corridors, which are common and ensure massive delays in the entire rail network. In addition, another 4,000 kilometers are to be improved by “small and medium -sized measures”. By the end of 2027, DB plans to create a punctuality of the ICE and IC trains of 75 to 80 percent. Last February it was 66.3 percent.
The map shows railway lines in Germany with a planned general renovation.
“There is more money, but there are no longer heads”
Industry experts, however, are skeptical whether Deutsche Bahn can get the ambitious construction and diversion concept as planned. There are already too few planners, too few dispatchers, too few construction companies and engineers for such large railway construction sites in Germany.
Birgit Milius from the TU Berlin generally find the large -scale renovations well, but considers the plan to be very ambitious: “Maybe it would also be good for the whole thing to say that we will not implement it until 2030, but until 2033 or 2034. And have better detour routes, more citizen participation and create a higher added value with fewer means.”
In the future, some high -performance routes will even be renovated in parallel according to the plans of Deutsche Bahn. This can only be done at the expense of smaller route renovations, estimates rail expert Christian Böttger because staff would have to be deducted: “There is more money, but there are no longer heads”.
Large projects at the expense of smaller work?
The experts Böttger and Milius would not be surprised if specialists had to be deducted from other smaller construction projects for the Riedbahn renovation and then were missing there. Especially from the area of the acceptance test, i.e. the last step, where specialists are missing massively.
“However, it should not happen that the small projects then fall down in an excessive number,” says Milius. A railway spokeswoman says that usually no employees from other regions could be fetched, since staff is fundamentally scarce.
“A Management error the Deutsche Bahn “
Experts like Böttger accuse the railways of having missed over the years of having trained new acceptance auditors: “So this is a management error of the railway.”
According to the train, the training of new examiners is a lengthy process. For example, a train -specific training after studying engineering takes up to seven years. With an internal qualification program, the railway plans to set up around 40 percent more test capacity by 2030. Until then, the 41 renovations should actually be almost completed. A bottle neck will remain foreseeable.
Digitization Could create relief
The train is in a dilemma, explains Birgit Milius: On the one hand, it wants to and has to renovate the rail network, and on the other hand, she tries to digitize her company. And at full speed. Because with digitization, urgently used specialist staff could be released.
For example, the countless driving service providers, some of whom still manage and switches. “If the signal boxes were digitized, personnel would also be clear, which could then be used somewhere else,” said Milius. According to a railway spokeswoman, however, a shift in the staff, for example to the renovation, is not so easy.
