NS Betuweroute 18 month closure

[childwallblues]

It is reported in Todays Railways Issue 336 that the Betuweroute which links the Port of Rotterdan with Germany is to close for 100 weeks from November 2024, This is to allow the building of a third track between Emmerich and Oberhausen which is the connecting route in Germany. Freight trains will be diverted via the Brabant route from Rotterdam to Breda, Tilburg, Eindhoven and Venlo.
The latter route evokes a few happy memories when four of us went to the line in 1975 to spot the ex BR Class 27000 Tommies when they operated mainly on Den Haag to Eindhoven and some other routes.
Happy Days

 

[Bemined]

Unless the plans changed significantly recently, that is not true. The plan was a 80 week construction period consisting of 60 weeks partial closure (single track operation) and 20 week full closure (no trains at all). During the partial closure, 70% of the trains can still run over the BetuweRoute.

 

[biko]

Just to help less knowledgeable people seeing the thread title: NS has practically nothing to do with this route, it’s a freight only line which is only sometimes used for diverted ICE trains. The works don’t happen in the Netherlands, so it means the Betuweroute is open but cannot be reached from Germany during the full closures and in the other direction it’s a dead end.

 

[DanielB]

Not even practically nothing, but absolutely nothing. Infrastructure is the responsibility of ProRail in the Netherlands.

The Betuweroute could be used by freight diverted to Bad Bentheim using the curve at Elst to leave the line, but I'm not sure that route is actually used as it's rather inpractical with locomotives having to shunt to the other end of the train in Deventer.

There's also a curve in Elst towards Nijmegen, but that would involve a diversion with even more single track.

 

[dutchflyer]

This WAS already the case during a few weeks last summer-when the freight was mostly rerouted via Venlo. Works for the 3d track in Germany have started quite some time ago and can be seen using the slower RE19 VIAS Arnhem-Oberhausen at many points. There will be a kind of big ''bang'' (not really seeing this long period-but its well over 70 KMs) in probably the same matter.
Most annoying is the then quite often delays on the dutch IC trains Rotterdam-Eindhoven, due to change over to the new ''wasp'' stock.

 

[Bemined]

The BetuweRoute curve towards Elst/Arnhem has one cargo path per hour, the curve towards Nijmegen is out of service and cannot be used. At the Elst/Arnhem curve also only one of the two tracks is in service.