Intercity and regional trains will now not run at one in all Germany’s maximum essential railway stations for ten days: the railway has began paintings at the building of a brand new sign field at Cologne Central Station. Till the morning of November 24, vacationers can handiest succeed in the primary station within the town of over one million other people by means of S-Bahn or U-Bahn.
Information
Deutsche Bahn: Lengthy-distance site visitors at Cologne Major Station suspended for ten days Deutsche Bahn: ICE path between Cologne and Hagen will probably be closed for months ICE L: New ICE type from Deutsche Bahn offered
Building paintings this is if truth be told deliberate right through the closure can’t be performed as deliberate. The railway found out insects within the tool for the brand new sign field on the remaining minute and due to this fact not on time its commissioning till subsequent spring.
Then the intercity and regional traces at Cologne Central Station must be closed for the second one time – however now not for so long as this time. “What we can already tell passengers is that the second closure will be shorter,” mentioned Matthias Grammer, regional supervisor at rail subsidiary InfraGo, which is chargeable for infrastructure.
Issues at some of the essential railway stations
Now the highest precedence is to briefly repair the tool downside in order that the brand new digital lock can get started operating. The mistake, which was once handiest found out in a brief time frame, was once now not predictable, they emphasize within the railway. Greater than 50 new sign containers are put into operation in Germany annually. It is vitally unlucky that there have been issues at Cologne Central Station of all puts.
The ten-day closure of Cologne Central Station for intercity and regional trains can now nonetheless be used to organize alerts, switches and overhead traces for regulate from the brand new sign field. When the closure takes position subsequent 12 months, the previous signaling nonetheless wanted for teach site visitors must be dismantled. However that might be quicker.
Minister of Shipping: Piece from a madhouse
NRV Minister of Shipping Oliver Krischer (Vegetables) strongly criticized the railway for the 2 closures. “This is of course a part from a madhouse, there is no other way to say it. And for me it is a mystery how something like that can happen in DB,” Krischer mentioned in an interview with VDR2.
The minister specifically criticized the truth that the verdict was once made in this kind of quick time frame to not put the brand new sign field into operation regardless of the lengthy time limit. “We planned it for a long time. And then I found out two days in advance: April, April – the software cannot be installed because it does not work,” mentioned the minister. “You can’t even imagine that.”
ICE trains forestall at teach stations at the outskirts of Cologne
All the way through the 10-day closure, many ICE trains forestall out of doors Ehrenfeld or Messe/Deutz teach stations as an alternative of the primary teach station. From there, passengers can take the S-Bahn to the primary station – as it’s operated from a distinct sign field and isn’t suffering from the closure. One of the best ways to look data on-line is to look how your connection is operating regardless of the development paintings, advises Deutsche Bahn.
Even in regional site visitors, some traces similar to RE 1 (Aachen-Ham) or RE 5 (Wesel-Koblenz) in large part bypass the town and due to this fact don’t forestall at Leverkusen or Dusseldorf-Bennrath, for instance. In general, there are diversions on ten regional shipping traces.
With 1,300 trains and loads of 1000’s of passengers on a daily basis, Cologne Central Station is the central hub for rail site visitors in western Germany.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:251114-930-294191/3