Deutsche Bahn closes important routes during Easter holidays, especially in the Ruhr area

Rail passengers, especially in the Ruhr area, will have to be prepared for numerous timetable changes and cancellations during the Easter holidays over the next two weeks. Due to construction work, the important connection between Essen and Duisburg is completely closed from this Friday evening (21.00) until the end of the Easter holidays. This has an impact on train traffic to Dortmund and Düsseldorf and also on long-distance traffic. Rail passengers sometimes have to accept long detours or change to significantly slower buses.

There are also route closures between Dortmund and Münster as well as on the Lower Rhine during the Easter holidays. One had deliberately put the construction work in the holidays, "because then fewer commuters and no students are on the road," said a railway spokesman.

Local and long-distance traffic affected

The construction work around Duisburg and Essen has the greatest impact: 14 local lines and important long-distance connections are cancelled or diverted. The cities on the important east-west axis between Dortmund and Duisburg will be completely cut off from long-distance traffic during the two weeks. ICEs and ICs do not stop in Bochum, Essen and Mülheim/Ruhr. Also in Duisburg, there will be some failures, informed the railway. Trains between Düsseldorf and Berlin, for example, would be diverted. Travelers would have to be prepared for longer travel times – also because there is construction work on the route in other federal states at the same time.

For suburban trains and commuter trains, the impact varies from city to city. Only buses will run between Essen and Duisburg for the next two weeks, and not a single train will stop at Mülheim/Ruhr station for two weeks. However, the replacement buses on the route should run "at close intervals", promises the railway.

Setting the course for the fast future

Background to the line closure: For a total of nine million euros, tracks in Duisburg, Oberhausen and Essen would be renewed, switches replaced and the power supply for the trains modernized. This would create the conditions for more trains to run on the heavily used route in the future, wrote the railway. Also at the motorway junction Kaiserberg will be worked on during the railway closure on the tracks. The important motorway junction will be modernised and expanded over the next eight years. Exactly in the area of this large construction site also run eight railway tracks.

Construction will also take place between Dortmund and Münster in the coming weeks. Between Lünen and Davensberg, the line will remain closed until 12 May. Long-distance trains between Dortmund and Hamburg are diverted and take about 45 minutes longer. In local transport, passengers on the Eurobahn line RB50 have to change to buses on the closed route or switch to other connections with a change in Hamm.

Extensive construction work also begins on the Lower Rhine with the start of the Easter holidays. For the expansion of the important freight train route to the port of Rotterdam, the section between Oberhausen and Arnhem in the Netherlands is being built. Until 16 April, the route will be completely closed to long-distance and local traffic. Even after that, restrictions are expected until the end of May, the railway said.

ADAC warns of Easter traffic

On the streets it gets correspondingly crowded. Shortly before the start of the Easter holidays in Bavaria, the first big wave of travel of the year is expected. Travelers have to be prepared for crowded roads, full trains and waiting times at the airports. On the motorways, the ADAC expects traffic jams, especially in the south of the Free State, as a spokesman for the automobile club announced. Especially on Friday afternoon as well as on Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon, it is likely to be tight on the highways. The routes to Austria and Italy as well as to the local recreation areas of Upper Bavaria and the Allgäu are also affected.

Munich Airport expects up to 1.6 million passengers during the Easter holidays. More than 1,16 take-offs or landings were registered from April 13 to 300, a spokesman said. This is slightly more than a year ago, when the airport recorded 13,000 flights. Easter is the first big travel wave of the year. The airport therefore strongly advises passengers to check in online in advance and allow enough time. Around 16,177 passengers are expected at Nuremberg Airport up to and including 000 April.

Also traffic jams in the north

In the north, the ADAC also expects traffic jams on the motorways in Hamburg. "If half of Germany makes the journey, we will also get bigger problems in Hamburg," said the spokesman for the ADAC Hansa Club, Christian Hieff. He predicted: "It will be very tight at Easter." This weekend, the school holidays begin in ten federal states. However, there are no Easter holidays in Hamburg itself, in Lower Saxony they have already begun and Schleswig-Holstein has no school until Maundy Thursday.

The automobile club sees a risk of traffic jams especially on the A7, on which construction is being carried out north and south of the Elbe tunnel. There are no closed lanes, but bottlenecks, said Hieff. The A1 from Bremen in the direction of Lübeck is also quickly overloaded. The construction site on the A23 from the triangle Hamburg-Nordwest, however, is not a major obstacle for North Sea holidaymakers.

Highlight on Maundy Thursday

While the motorways will already be fuller this weekend, the ADAC expects the peak of the travel wave only on Maundy Thursday, partly also on Good Friday and Saturday. On Easter Monday, a first wave of return travel will begin, it said.

The A7 (Hanover-Flensburg) will be extended from six to eight lanes in Hamburg. South of the Elbe tunnel, where the motorway stands on stilts for almost four kilometres, two lanes will be inserted between the directional carriageways. North of the tunnel, a two-kilometre-long noise protection tunnel is being built in Bahrenfeld.