The Pro Bahn passenger association has described the postponement of a new line between Hamburg and Hanover as a disaster for millions of passengers. “Any improvement on this heavily congested railway line will take at least six years to come,” the interest group said at the weekend. As a result, disruptions and delays remained the order of the day, indirectly also on many other routes. The Germany cycle planned for the railway and the transport turnaround became a long way off.
Pro-Bahn state chief Malte Diehl spoke of an unnecessary delay, as the railway had largely completed the preliminary planning for a new building and demonstrated that the new building would cause fewer ecological problems than critics feared. The general renovation of the route, now planned for 2029 instead of 2026, will reduce disruptions and thus delays, but will not create any new capacities. In long-distance and regional transport as well as in freight transport, trains would therefore not be able to run more closely.
Lower Saxony’s Transport Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) supported the planned postponement of the general renovation during the week and emphasized again that he considered a new building on the route to be unrealistic. However, the Federal Ministry of Transport did not rule out a new building because even an extended general renovation would not be sufficient to implement the Germany Pact. With the Germany clock, trains will arrive in major cities every 30 minutes and long-distance and regional transport will be better interlinked.