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In 2024, train travel at Christmas should be more pleasant
Photo: Andreas Arnold / dpa
At Easter, the Transport Minister spreads hope with a view to Christmas: Volker Wissing expects long-distance trains to be more punctual at Christmas time. As soon as the Riedbahn - an important route between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim - is renovated, the first improvements will be noticeable, the FDP politician told the Funke media group: "That will be at the end of the year, i.e. around Christmas traffic in 2024." Last year there were Almost two thirds of long-distance trains are delayed. A train is considered to be on time if it is less than six minutes late.
The Riedbahn is currently responsible for a lot of delays. »Every seventh long-distance train passes this route. Due to the poor condition, there is at least one operational disruption every day. The 70 kilometer long Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim is to be completely closed for almost six months as part of the renovation. »If the Riedbahn is renovated, there should at least be no more network-related operational disruptions there. And that in turn has a positive impact throughout the entire network,” said Wissing.
The Riedbahn is the first section of the route that the railway is tackling as part of the so-called general renovation. According to Wissing, a total of around 16.3 billion euros will flow into rail this year, primarily into the renovation of sections of the route.
With a view to the further general renovation of important routes in the coming years, Wissing gave passengers further hope: they want to complete the renovation by 2030, which is ambitious. “Until then, things will gradually get noticeably better for passengers and companies.”
SPIEGEL research recently showed that the ambitious goal of general renovation - 80 percent of trains should be on time by 2030 - is hardly realistic. After all, it is already behind schedule: in 2023, punctuality was not 67 percent, as the railway had predicted, but only 64 percent. (Read more about this here: Why the railway will probably not be on time in the future despite many billions)
sak/dpa