Full closure of the German Rhine Valley Railway has consequences for Switzerland
Published: Friday, Jan 5th 2024, 12:10
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The German Rhine Valley Railway on the Basel-Karlsruhe line, which is important for Swiss rail traffic, will be completely closed for three weeks next August due to construction work. SBB has reduced services and freight traffic will be rerouted over a wide area.
The full closure from August 9 to 30 is in connection with construction work for the four-lane expansion. A full closure is planned in order to complete the southern connection of the Rastatt Tunnel, project manager Philipp Langefeld told the news agency DPA this week.
"It's not everyday that you do something like this. But it's the better option," said Langefeld: "Otherwise we would have had to make around 50 individual closures, for example at weekends."
In August 2017, an accident occurred in the tunnel during the construction of the underpass under the existing Rhine Valley Railway. The tracks above sank, bringing traffic to a standstill for seven weeks.
Germany and Deutsche Bahn (DB) are investing the equivalent of around CHF 14 billion in the four-track expansion of the approximately 200-kilometre-long line in the Rhine Valley. The aim is to be completed in 2041.
SBB have adjusted the timetable
While freight trains will be diverted via Austria and France during the full closure, buses will run between Baden-Baden and Rastatt for passenger traffic. And this will have an impact on travelers from Switzerland.
SBB has already adjusted the timetable: There will be a reduced service. One ICE train per hour will run from Basel to Baden-Baden, as the SBB confirmed in response to an inquiry from the "Basler Zeitung".
The night trains (Nightjets) to Berlin and Hamburg will run from Zurich via Schaffhausen, with no stop in Basel. Meanwhile, the Nightjet to Amsterdam will run around three and a half hours earlier and only from Basel.
Railroads in "crisis mode"
The full closure also represents a bottleneck for freight traffic. According to SBB Cargo International, the detour capacity is around 100 freight trains per day. Ideally, around 200 freight trains per day run on the Rhine Valley Railway.
In December, Peter Füglistaler, Director of the Federal Office of Transport, told the news agency DPA that Switzerland had prepared itself for two more years "in crisis mode" for rail traffic on the Rhine route from Germany: "It is foreseeable that there will be several major construction sites and closures in 2024 and 2025. We will be in crisis mode."
©Keystone/SDA
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