That’s it then. There will be no lowering of the railway tracks in the urban area of Dorfen. Apart from a short section where it will go halfway under the B 15 federal road so that the road bridge is not too high and too steep. However, there is nothing more. The years of Dorfen efforts to find a trough solution have ultimately brought nothing.
Mayor Heinz Grundner (CSU) received the final rejection from the Federal Ministry of Transport this Monday. State Secretary Michael Theurer (FDP), who also holds the title of Federal Government Commissioner for Rail Transport, did not need many words for this. In a two-page letter, one thing stands out above all else: the cost argument that was always feared from the start. According to a new study, the expansion variant of the Munich transport consultant Martin Vieregg, which is the majority preference in Dorfen and allows the tracks to disappear in a wide ditch, costs an estimated 126 million euros and would therefore be an unaffordable 72 million euros more expensive than the plans of Deutsche Bahn. The decisive sentence reads: “Since the federal government is not able to bear the additional costs on the given legal basis, DB Netz AG will continue with its planning as the most economical variant.”
The city of Dorfen will certainly also not make a commitment to take over tens of millions of euros. Mayor Grundner made this clear again in an initial reaction: “Unfortunately, the result was to be expected as such. In the next step, the city council will have to discuss and decide whether it is possible for the city of Dorfen to assume the additional costs. From my point of view the additional costs in the household cannot be represented.”
An excerpt from a digitally created video of the railway shows that the tracks will only go down a little lower on the B 15 federal road so that the bridge is not so steep.
(Photo: Screenshot: Youtube/DB Netz AG)
Martin Vieregg reacted disappointed and angry at the cost calculation made by the German Center for Rail Transport Research (DZSF). The DZSF is a federal institute attached to the Federal Railway Authority. Vieregg says of the test report, “it is clear from every page that my proposal was not wanted”. He is already in the process of writing a detailed response. “I can’t let it sit on me – it’s really damaging to my reputation,” said Vieregg of the SZ.
Klaus-Peter Zellmer, the overall project manager for the railway expansion at Deutsche Bahn, was satisfied and confirmed his opinion on all points. The plans for the railway expansion in the Dorfen urban area should be completed in about a year. Then the approval process can begin. In the year 2030, that remains Zellmer’s goal, the upgraded line should be finished.
Dorfen’s wish that the tracks should be lowered when the single-track and non-electrified railway line Munich – Mühldorf was expanded goes back many years. This has been the subject of intensive discussion since 2011. Georg Brandhuber from Dorfen had been to Ampfing and was shocked by the almost endlessly long noise protection walls along the railway line through the town. Dorfen was threatened with the same and worse, Brandhuber said to himself, drummed up resistance and founded the citizens’ initiative “For a railway expansion without barriers and walls”. In 2012, the city council joined the call for the railway tracks to be lowered to a large extent. The following year, the railways agreed to also examine a trough solution and hope germinated in Dorfen. Then the railway presented a cost estimate, according to which a track trough would be utopian expensive.
This visualization of the Vieregg variant was carried out by the planners at Deutsche Bahn. The section shows how the tracks run under the B 15 and behind them the lowered platforms. Visualization: DB Netz AG
It went on with such ups and downs for many years. There were internal disputes in Dorfen, new perspectives for the railway expansion when the Meindl roof tile factory next to the railway was closed, strict positions of the railway planners and a promising petition that Georg Brandhuber submitted to the Bundestag. In June 2017, a delegation from the Petitions Committee came from the Spree to the Isen and encouraged the people of Dorfen to come up with an alternative solution for the railway expansion. The traffic consultant Martin Vieregg was hired for this purpose, and in the following years he worked out his version of lowering the tracks with increasing detail. In September 2020, the people from Dorfen went to Berlin to convince those responsible in the Federal Ministry of Transport of the alternative solution. A so-called fact check was agreed there, in which controversial points were to be clarified before a final decision was made. That didn’t work. While Mayor Grundner and some city councilors then gave up the Vieregg variant, the majority did not give up and demanded a neutral review of the controversial cost issue from the Federal Ministry of Transport.
That has now happened and a year-long struggle against “monster bridges and miles of ugly noise barriers” is lost for Georg Brandhuber and his citizens’ initiative. It wasn’t a nice day for him. The project manager Zellmer, who was in a much better mood, wanted to get rid of one thing in an interview with the SZ on Tuesday. The discussion about the railway expansion in Dorfen was controversial, but always “constructive and on an equal footing – I am very grateful for that, including Mr. Brandhuber, whom I appreciate very much.”