The Hamburg-Berlin railway line is to be reopened on Tuesday morning
After cable fire
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Railway line between Hamburg and Berlin should be released on Tuesday morning
Good news for rail travelers between Berlin and Hamburg: After the closure due to a cable fire, the route is to be reopened earlier than expected on Tuesday morning. Until then there are restrictions.
After the fire in a cable on the common railway line between Berlin and Hamburg, the repair work should only last until Tuesday morning. A railway spokesman said on Monday afternoon in rbb that the route should then be released again. The railway had previously assumed that the repairs would last until Wednesday evening.
At the weekend, a fire broke out in a cable duct between Friesack and Paulinenaue in Brandenburg and destroyed numerous cables. Trains on the heavily used connection will be diverted. This leads to delays and cancellations.
Trains are canceled or diverted
The ICE trains between Kiel or Hamburg and Munich are diverted and do not stop in Büchen, Ludwigslust and Wittenberge. Travelers will be on the road about an hour longer as a result.
The ICE trains between Kiel and Stuttgart between fallen Kiel and Berlin completely off.
Also the IC/EC trains between Kiel or Westerland and Dresden or Prague failed completely on the route to Berlin.
Rail replacement service disrupted
Up to 25 technicians had been writing to fix the damage since the weekend. According to the spokesman, you would have to replace numerous cables for the control and safety technology for points and signals.
Meanwhile, on Monday morning there were problems with the rail replacement service for the Regionalexpress 2 of the East German railway ODEG. Passengers at the Wittenberg train station reported that they had waited in vain for a replacement bus. ODEG managing director Roland Pauli admitted problems to the rbb. In the morning, only four buses were traveling between Wittenberge and Nauen. “Now in the course of the day more are to be added so that we have six buses on the road there,” says Pauli.
The reason for the bottleneck was difficulties in obtaining replacement buses. “Even with the bus companies, the offices are not manned at the weekend and the companies also have their constraints. They first have to activate their buses and drivers,” said Pauli.
Technical fault as the probable cause
As the Brandenburg police department told rbb, there was a fire in a cable duct on Saturday on the route in the area of the municipality of Wiesenaue (Havelland). A length of five meters of cable was destroyed.
According to the current state of knowledge of the fire investigators from the Brandenburg State Criminal Police Office, a technical fault is the reason. The investigations are not yet complete. There are currently no signs of an attack or arson.
Cable fire also affects mobile communications
The cable fire also affects mobile phone reception in the Prignitz. As the provider Vodafone announced when asked by rbb, there have been clear ones since Saturday afternoon. “A total of up to 11,600 mobile phone customers are currently unable to use the network,” said Vodafone spokesman Volker Petendorf in writing.
According to rbb information, there has even been a complete network failure in Wittenberge since the weekend. In Perleberg, mobile communications with Vodafone are only possible to a limited extent.
According to Vodafone, the cable fire on the railway line destroyed a supply line operated by the railway subsidiary DBKom. According to Vodafone, the repair of the destroyed lines has started.
“Very heavily used route in long-distance traffic”
According to a railway spokesman, around 60 trains normally run between Hamburg and Berlin every day. “It is a very heavily used route in long-distance traffic.” In normal operation, around 17,000 passengers use the connection every day.
The trains have only been running on this route since December after around three months of renovation work again without detours and interruptions. The route between Berlin-Spandau and Büchen had been renovated for around 100 million euros. According to Bahn, around 400 kilometers of new rails were laid and 24 new points installed. Around 30,000 tons of ballast were also replaced and the control and safety technology renewed.
Broadcast: Inforadio, February 7, 2022, 2 p.m