The railway is struggling with the ailing rail network

Mr Huber, Deutsche Bahn has announced a general overhaul of its rail network. It starts in July 2024. Why so late?

Because such a general renovation requires extremely intensive preparation.

You start with the Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim.

Exactly. One diversion goes via Darmstadt, the other via Worms, and the routes must be repaired in such a way that the diverted trains can also travel over them with as few problems as possible. In addition, rail replacement services must be created for passenger transport companies. The pain of transition is unbelievably great. We come from a conventional regime, we call it “building under the rolling wheel”. As a result, we build bit by bit, with a tablespoon, so to speak, instead of industrially. We’re getting away from that now. This means that we have to completely redesign countless construction sites to make things fit together. This also applies to more than 150 construction sites throughout Germany that actually have nothing to do with the Riedbahn. That just needs advance. That’s why I’m telling you: 2024 is damn fast.

The approach sounds plausible. Didn’t anyone actually think of doing it this way in the last few decades?

Of course, there have already been repair measures for which we proceeded in a similar way. But we didn’t do it systematically, but mostly when there was no other way. Now we are starting to do this on routes that are particularly heavily used. There were of course major reservations about completely blocking these routes for six months. In the case of the Riedbahn, the closure will last five months, and the effort involved is enormous: the freight transport companies have to ensure that the products still get to the customers, the passenger transport companies can only provide a thinned out range. So far, this drastic step has been avoided, because it still worked somehow. But now we are taking this step with great support from Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing.

And what comes instead?

Now we’re going to proceed very systematically: We’ll start with Frankfurt – Mannheim and then go through main route by main route. There are seven to eight of these highly trafficked corridors that we are rehabilitating and bringing up to date. This general renovation will make the entire network significantly better. We turn the heavily loaded network into a high-performance network. And you will see that if the Riedbahn works better, it will have a positive effect on the entire network.

Can you feel that in Berlin and Cologne too?

Yes, because at least 20 percent of long-distance traffic and a lot of international freight traffic travel via the Riedbahn. If the trains there are not punctual, the entire routes are not punctual and the connections no longer work. So I don’t have to wait until the last corridor is completed by 2030 at the latest to feel an effect.

So the promise to the customer is: two years in a valley of tears and then it will run trouble-free for ten years?

The promise is: don’t drive like you’re used to for five months because the timetable has been thinned out and some substitute buses have to be used. But then eight to ten years without building. Unlike in the past, we are redesigning everything on the route at the same time: stations, tracks, ballast bed, points, overhead lines and signals. We will install an electronic signal box that we can operate digitally. So far we have only renewed the components piece by piece. The vale of tears didn’t last five months, but forever.