BERLIN (AP) — One of the busiest rail lines in GermanyThe 70-kilometre stretch between Frankfurt and Mannheim will be closed for five months from Monday as the country works to overhaul its notoriously disruption-prone network.
State-owned railway company Deutsche Bahn is closing the route until December 14 and is planning a complete overhaul of the tracks, stations and other infrastructure. More than 300 trains a day use the route, part of a major north-south route connecting Hamburg and Cologne with Stuttgart and Basel, Switzerland, and often encounter delays that have knock-on effects elsewhere in the network.
During the closure, all regional trains on the route will be replaced by buses, while long-distance trains will be diverted via slower routes.
The 1.3 billion euro ($1.4 billion) overhaul is set to kick off a broader programme to upgrade 40 stretches of track by 2030 and improve the reliability of a network that has often been unimpressive. In the past month, it has frustrated football fans at the European Championship hosted by Germanywhich ended on Sunday.
On Friday, Deutsche Bahn said punctuality during the tournament had been “mixed,” adding that it was “making the most of the rail system, but capabilities were limited by ageing and congested infrastructure.”
Transport Minister Volker Wissing said starting the renovation programme before the football tournament would cause even more disruption.
“I have taken over the dilapidated railway infrastructure, in which my predecessors have underinvested for decades,” Wissing, who became transport minister at the end of 2021, told Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday. “We are going to invest enormous amounts, historic amounts, in the railways.”