Status: 23.07.2021 3:47 p.m.
Deutsche Bahn hopes to be able to repair the greatest damage in the areas affected by the flood by the end of the year. But the reconstruction of some routes will take years.
Rail travelers who want to travel from Euskirchen to Bad Münstereifel, 14 kilometers away, may have to wait for years. As Deutsche Bahn announced today, it should be possible to repair the greatest damage in the areas of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate affected by the flood disaster by the end of the year, so that traffic is largely normal again. However, in some regions it will take longer.
It looks particularly bad on the so-called Erft Valley Railway between Euskrichen and Bad Münstereifel. Here and along the Ahr between Bad Neuenahr and Remagen nothing can be seen of the previous routes and connections, said Volker Hentschel, the board member for asset and maintenance management at the DB Netz subsidiary. “We’re talking about months, if not years in some places.”
The duration of the reconstruction cannot be foreseen
In fact, the masses of water washed away entire railway embankments, brought bridges to collapse and track connections broken like matches. The Voreifelbahn between Bonn and Euskirchen is also affected. The connection last operated as S 23 is interrupted in several places and has to be rebuilt from scratch.
The Eifel route from Trier to Cologne has also been partially destroyed. On some sections of the route, for example between Gerolstein and Trier, buses are currently in use, but several smaller train stations cannot yet be reached. And it is currently not foreseeable how long the reconstruction will take, according to Deutsche Bahn.
The route used by commuters on S-Bahn line 9 from Wuppertal-Vohwinkel to Essen-Steele must also be renewed, as well as part of the Ruhr-Sieg route between Hagen and Plettenberg in the Sauerland. Long-distance traffic between the Rhine-Ruhr area and the Rhine-Main area was spared from the flood disaster. This particularly applies to the ICE route between Siegburg and Frankfurt Airport along the A3.
On the go around the clock
However, the exact extent of the damage is still not known. So far, not all routes have been finally assessed, it says from the railway. Around 2000 employees have been out and about almost around the clock for a week to look at the systems and repair them wherever possible.
Talks are currently underway with the federal government about funding. A total of 600 kilometers of tracks are affected, as well as 50 bridges and dozen of stations and stops. 180 level crossings, 40 signal boxes and more than 1000 catenary and signal masts are so badly damaged that they will probably have to be replaced, said Hentschel. The railway puts the damage at 1.3 billion euros.