German "General-renovation"

[paul_munich]

In an national effort the likes of which the world has never seen before and will probably never see again, the German people raised the infrastructure in the five new states, which were scarred by 40 years of communism, not just to the level of the old Federal Republic, but even above it! Cab ride East Berlin 1990

So sadly therefore the road- and rail network in the old states has been neglected for years. The international forum is full of reports of delayed IC(E)s and REs and unfortunately the current overall figures are not impressive, the average punctuality was only circa 90% last month, and that of long-distance trains was only around 60%.

So in 2022 it was decided to completely renovate the high-performance network in the old states as part of a general renovation. (German Wiki: Generalsanierung)
To do this, the entire line will be closed for months and completely renovated.

Today, on December 15th, the first of around 40 planned general renovation projects ended successfully!
The heavily used "Riedbahn" between Mannheim-Waldhof and Frankfurt-Zeppelinheim, was reopened again.
In the last five months 117km of tracks were renewed, three new additional crossing points were installed, LZB was expanded, ETCS 2.0 was installed (currently not yet in operation) the linespeed was increased in several places, two level crossings were closed for good and the stations along the line were also upgraded.
Overall, a complete success!
The next step is the renovation of the Hollandline between Emmerich and Oberhausen until mid 2026.

 

[DanielB]

The next step is the renovation of the Hollandline between Emmerich and Oberhausen until mid 2026.

That one is slightly different however, as it is not always completely closed. Though it will be closed the majority of the time and for example Nightjet services use alternate routes for the entire 2025 timetable (Amsterdam - Zürich via 's-Hertogenbosch - Venlo; Amsterdam - Vienna/Innsbruck via Deventer - Bad Bentheim)

 

[dutchflyer]

That one is slightly different however, as it is not always completely closed. Though it will be closed the majority of the time and for example Nightjet services use alternate routes for the entire 2025 timetable (Amsterdam - Zürich via 's-Hertogenbosch - Venlo; Amsterdam - Vienna/Innsbruck via Deventer - Bad Bentheim)

And works along it have already staretd many moons ago. In fact it is also meant to mostly lay an extra track beside it to give the many freight trains over this line (main line to Rotterdam port=also a port used for a lot of things for DE) their own space.
One may just hope that staff finds riding on these renovated lines so attractive that there are enough of them to also staff all planned trains........
And that someone may decide that bringing normal double track to Venlo-Viersen is also a worthwhile investment