Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) has described the planned rehabilitation of the railway line from Frankfurt to Mannheim in 2024 as an operation on a main artery of the German railway network.

Manfred Koehler - Wikipedia

Head of the Rhein-Main editorial department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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Deutsche Bahn wants to test a "general renovation" on this connection for the first time, in which an important route is completely closed for several months in order to renew it from the ground up. Until now, renewals had always been carried out during ongoing operations or during several successive closures.

The railway line from Frankfurt to Mannheim via Groß-Gerau and Biblis, also known as the Ried Railway, is used by more than 300 trains a day. In the second half of 2024, tracks with a length of 117 kilometres, 152 points, 140 kilometres of overhead lines and ten kilometres of noise barriers will be renewed. 20 stations along the line will be modernised. According to Deutsche Bahn, the work should be completed by Christmas 2024.

According to Berthold Huber, member of the board of Deutsche Bahn responsible for infrastructure, a total of 500 million euros is to be invested. The main goal is to increase reliability on the track.

Local trains, suburban trains and regional trains are to be replaced with buses between July and December. Long-distance and freight trains will be diverted via Worms and Mainz or Darmstadt during the general renovation. According to Deutsche Bahn, delays of more than 30 minutes cannot be avoided.

Wissing said that the Ried Railway was a "real problem child" of Deutsche Bahn, on which there were currently disruptions almost every day. It is important to make rail traffic more punctual in this decade – not only when new lines have been completed. Mak.