A feasibility study carried out on behalf of Deutsche Bahn proves, according to information from rail infrastructure director Ronald Pofalla, that a long-distance railway tunnel under Frankfurt city center would make rail traffic in the “central mobility hub of the republic” much easier.

When the investigation was presented in Frankfurt on Monday, Pofalla emphasized that if Deutsche Bahn wanted to attract more passengers, its capacities would have to be expanded.

The tunnel for two tracks under Frankfurt is used for this purpose.

The study shows that in the future 1,500 instead of 1,250 trains a day could stop at the main station and that it would be possible to build the tunnel within the budget of 3.6 billion euros previously specified.

Another advantage of the tunnel is that it would cut travel times by around seven minutes.

Manfred Koehler

Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and editor-in-chief of the business magazine Metropol.

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    According to the documents published by Deutsche Bahn on Monday, it is planned that the tunnel route will begin west of the main train station at the level of the Gallus district.

    The tracks then lead under the station, under its south side, i.e. the one facing the Main.

    The trains are supposed to stop there on four tracks at a depth of 35 meters.

    Then the route swings south and runs several kilometers below the Main.

    "The tunnel can come"

    That seems like the only way to cross under the city center. In particular, the skyscrapers along the ramparts with their foundations up to 50 meters deep would not be underpassed. The tunnel should branch out at the level of the wholesale market hall; A connection is planned both to the north Main line to Hanau and to the line to Offenbach. In the future, trains in these directions would save having to leave the main station in the opposite direction and drive a large loop through Sachsenhausen. Pofalla said on Monday that history would be made that day. It is about a "core element" for the planned Germany cycle, i.e. fixed departure times of all long-distance trains, of which much more should run in the future than currently. “The tunnel can come."Also in the press release of the state company it is said," The Main metropolis is getting the long-awaited railway tunnel ".

    Enak Ferlemann (CDU), Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport, stated that Frankfurt was one of the most important railway nodes in Germany, if not the most important.

    The federal government is therefore providing the money for the main railway tunnel, even if you don't know exactly how much it will cost in the end.

    He called on Deutsche Bahn to move ahead with planning quickly so that construction could start before 2030 if possible.

    A complement and not a substitute

    The Hessian Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (The Greens) also called for the project to be implemented quickly. He referred to Zurich, where the main train station was also supplemented by an underground through station. There it took only 17 years from the first idea to the opening. “That leaves us with fifteen.” The minister emphasized that all the other projects to modernize the main train station and the tracks leading to it, which have been jointly known as “Frankfurt Rhein-Main Plus”, would still be implemented. The tunnel is an addition, not a replacement.

    The mayor of Frankfurt, Peter Feldmann (SPD), expressed the hope that there would only be protests if the building project was not implemented quickly. “Frankfurt is not Stuttgart.” Everyone wanted the tunnel, which by no means only serves the Main metropolis, but is an international project. More capacity, more punctuality for the railways, lower CO2 emissions from transport - all of these speak in favor of the project. Finally, Knut Ringat, the managing director of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund, said that the long-distance railway tunnel also serves local and regional traffic because it increases the capacities on the rail as a whole. The association now also wants to start planning a S-Bahn ring around Frankfurt; the western regional bypass must be supplemented by further sections such as a eastern regional bypass.

    On Friday, 19 institutions had already spoken out in favor of building the long-distance traffic tunnel, including the cities of Frankfurt, Hanau and Offenbach, the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND), the state association and the Frankfurt regional association of Pro Bahn, the airport operator Fraport, the trade fair Frankfurt and the Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen. Guido Carl, deputy chairman of the BUND Hessen, said, "To cope with climate change we need efficient rail transport". For this purpose, capacity expansions "in the S-Bahn and in regional traffic as well as a consideration of the long-distance railway tunnel in the ICE expansion routes for the establishment of the Germany cycle" are necessary.

    In the feasibility study, various routes under Frankfurt city center were examined, including those that they would have bypassed in the north. Deutsche Bahn will now begin with the concrete planning and will also involve the citizens; Information can be found on the Internet at

    fernbahntunnel-frankfurt.de.

    Nobody decided on a schedule on Monday, the company only said that the construction time would be around ten years.