Criticize transport associations: In 2022 no railway line will be reactivated

Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany could benefit if closed tracks were reconnected to the railway network. But nothing has happened for almost a year.

From the point of view of several transport associations, the federal and state governments are still making little progress with the reactivation of railway lines that were once closed. Since the Bundestag elections last year, “not a single kilometer of rail track in Germany” has been reactivated, said Dirk Flege, Managing Director of the Pro-Rail Alliance in Berlin today.

“This is a very sobering signal, also against the background of the coalition agreement, which says unequivocally and without reservation: ‘We will reactivate routes’.” The associations are calling for closed railway lines to be reconnected to the network more quickly. With the reactivation, the retreat of the past decades can be corrected and reversed across the board.

Some routes will be reactivated later this year

One of the reasons why things are stagnating: According to Flege, states and municipalities initially waited this year for a new legal basis for the cost-benefit calculation for the rehabilitation of old railway lines, which came into force in July.

Flege rated these as progress compared to older regulations and assumes that some routes will still be reactivated when the timetable changes in December this year. This included approximately one-kilometer sections each in Beelitz in Brandenburg and in Einbeck in Lower Saxony. “But we only expect a single-digit number of kilometers of reactivated routes in December,” he said. For years, the Pro-Rail Alliance has criticized the lack of speed in the reopening of closed routes.

In this context, the reactivation of old railway lines is considered an effective measure to connect more people to the rail network nationwide. “The willingness to use rail is there – and the potential for more rail traffic is enormous. People rightly expect rapid expansion – even in places where there is no rail connection today,” says Flege.

Reconnect hundreds of thousands to the rail network

In an updated brochure, the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) proposes a total of almost 280 so-called decommissioned routes nationwide with a total length of almost 4600 kilometers that could be considered for reactivation. According to the proposed reactivations, 332 cities and communities could be reconnected to the rail network and in this way hundreds of thousands of people could be reconnected to the rail network.

The dilapidated and overburdened railway network is to be extensively renovated by 2030. For example, more than 19 billion euros are to flow into new locomotives. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) made the renovation of the railway network a top priority in the summer.