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Berlin (dpa) - Deutsche Bahn wants to invest more than 1.4 billion euros in the expansion of parking facilities and plants for operational maintenance in Germany in the coming years.
"The quality is made in the infrastructure and in the factories," said Berthold Huber, board member for passenger transport, of the German press agency.
“That's why we said that first of all we want to invest in more vehicles and in new vehicles.
But then we also need significantly more maintenance capacities. "
At a total of eleven locations in Germany and Switzerland, capacities are to be expanded for so-called light maintenance.
This involves maintenance close to operation in order to make the trains fit again within a few hours for operation the next day or to prepare new vehicles for initial operation.
Deutsche Bahn is investing the largest share with 400 million euros in Nuremberg, where a completely new maintenance facility is to be built by 2028.
“Nuremberg is very suitable for us geographically and in terms of circulation,” said Huber.
"That's why we want to build a new plant there."
The parking facilities there will also be expanded for a further 20 million euros.
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More than 270 million euros will flow into the expansion of maintenance capacities to Berlin by 2026, and around 225 million euros to Frankfurt / Main by 2030.
"We now want to do everything we can to ensure that people find out after the pandemic: traveling by train is much smarter than getting back in the car," said Huber.
"In order to maintain new vehicles, we also have to adapt and convert some plants."
In addition, Deutsche Bahn intends to hire more than 1,000 additional employees for the plants in the coming years.
Deutsche Bahn is currently expecting a new ICE 4 train from Siemens every three weeks.
Around 75 of the trains are to be delivered by summer, with a total of 137 by 2025. In the summer of last year, Deutsche Bahn also ordered 30 new ICE-3 trains from Munich-based technology group Siemens for one billion euros.
The first should be on the way at the end of 2022.
In addition to operational maintenance, Deutsche Bahn also invests in heavy maintenance.
The trains are maintained much more thoroughly over several weeks in order to prepare them for the TÜV, for example.
The most prominent construction site will be the new maintenance facility in Cottbus, in which the federal government and the railways are investing around one billion euros.
A new ICE hall for heavy maintenance of the ICE 4 is planned at the site of today's Cottbus railway works.
Around 1100 new jobs and 100 training positions are to be created there by 2026.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210214-99-433596 / 2