The S-Bahn has to come through this hollow alley.

And the other trains too.

But they don't come.

The Salzbachtal, through which all important rail connections to Wiesbaden Central Station run, has been closed to train traffic since the weekend.

The reason for this is the A66 motorway bridge over the valley, the southern part of which is so dilapidated that cracks appeared and chunks of concrete loosened on Friday afternoon.

Since then, the central train station of the Hessian state capital has been cut off from train traffic for an indefinite period.

Matthias Trautsch

Coordination of the Rhine-Main report.

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    On Monday the track hall is completely orphaned, the display boards are emptied, only a family with three small children is sitting on platform 3 and looks quite frustrated.

    “We wanted to go to the Frankfurt Zoo,” says the father, Ronald Renz.

    The family traditionally does this once a year.

    Now not only the excursion but also the train ticket that has already been bought are gone.

    Because the Erbenheimer does not want to sit in one of the buses that serve as rail replacement services in the direction of Wiesbaden Ostbahnhof because of the crowd and the associated corona risk.

    "The purest chaos"

    However, very few passengers are so surprised by the situation on Monday. Anyone who takes the train in the direction of Wiesbaden from other parts of the Rhine-Main area is usually well informed. On the monitors at Frankfurt Central Station you can read that the S-Bahn lines S1 and S8 only go to Wiesbaden Ost and then back again and the S9 line turns in Mainz-Kastel. Accordingly, the passengers of the S1 accept their fate when the loudspeaker announcement “We ask all passengers to get off” sounds as the train pulls into Wiesbaden Ost.

    Two regular city buses are already waiting in front of the otherwise less frequented train station, and shortly afterwards a rail replacement bus will also arrive, which connects Mainz with Wiesbaden Central Station and stops in Wiesbaden Ost. There is not too much of a crowd at the bus stop, and some of the seats on the buses are also empty - although it is also around lunchtime. A commuter from Hanau predicts that “pure chaos” will reign here in the next few months in the main business traffic. She does not understand why large articulated buses are not used, especially under the conditions of Corona.

    Motorists fare no better than train travelers.

    Because not only the track connection under the Salzbachtal Bridge, but of course also the motorway bridge itself is closed, you have to exit at the Biebrich or Mainzer Straße junction.

    For those who come from the city center and want to take the motorway, the journey ends at a red and white striped barrier, from which drivers can take a look at a scaffolded pillar of the bridge that spans the Salzbachtal before turning.

    Cyclists are also not allowed through

    A cyclist on Mainzer Straße also comes to the barrier, then meanders a few meters further to a car that is standing across the street. An employee of a construction company explains to her that cyclists are also not allowed to drive under the bridge. The thirty-seven-year-old is visibly stressed: she actually wanted to get on at the main train station to go to work in Rüsselsheim. Her husband told her that the S-Bahn did not leave until Wiesbaden Ost, where she wanted to go by bike. The man from the construction company explains that this only goes over the other side of the Salzbachtal - the S-Bahn will probably miss it.

    Meanwhile, Wolfgang Schummer makes a pretty relaxed impression.

    The tanned, sporty pensioner from Biebrich rides his mountain bike over a small bridge that crosses the blocked section of the A66.

    "Actually, you can now open the motorway to cyclists on this part," he says and shrugs his shoulders.

    He is convinced that this would be worthwhile: it could take years before the bridge is demolished or blown up and rebuilt, he says.

    Columns of trucks in the city center

    Should it actually take that long, it would have far-reaching consequences. The eighty-two-year-old looks across the empty autobahn to the east, in the direction of the Salzbachtal, and then to the west, in the direction of the Biebrich junction. “Do you see that?” He asks, pointing to the columns of trucks driving off the A66 in agonizing slow motion pace onto Biebricher Allee.

    “I live on Biebricher Allee, right at the traffic lights,” says Schummer, who no longer seems so relaxed when thinking about the traffic on his doorstep. Even before the closure, traffic jams two kilometers long had formed daily on the A66, which was narrowed at the Salzbachtal bridge. Now the commuters and truck drivers would either have to dodge in a huge arc over the highways around Mainz or just meander through the Wiesbaden city center over the second ring. “We'll have the traffic jam with us,” says the pensioner. "And we get all the dirt off too."