Dream route Wendlingen-Ulm: A freight train came, the rest stays away!

Dream route Wendlingen-Ulm: A freight train came, the rest stays away!

Wendlingen am Neckar, Deutschland - The Wendlingen - Ulm express track was officially put into operation on December 11, 2022 and is intended to accelerate long -distance traffic and relieve freight traffic. Despite these ambitious objectives, however, a sobering picture for goods transport has been shown. In the first two and a half years, only a single freight train drove the new route. The reason for this lies in the excessive slope of the route, which cannot manage regular, heavily loaded freight trains.

Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens) made it clear that there are no easy freight trains that could cope with the route. The original planning stipulated that 17 freight trains would use the route every day, but this turned out to be unrealistic. This misjudgment is perceived as worrying by many critics and raises questions about the economy of the entire project. The old route over the Geislinger Steige remains in operation, since the hoped -for relief will fail.

technical details of the route

The speed track extends over a length of 59.575 km and is part of the course book line 750.1 of the Deutsche Bahn, which is designed for a maximum maximum speed of 250 km/h. Technically impressive, the considerable proportion of the route, which runs in tunnels: 50.7 % or 30.2 km, have implemented the engineers in underground construction. This demanding construction attracted total costs of around 3.99 billion euros.

In the planning phase, which began in 2005, traffic forecasts were created, in which 70 passenger trains and 80 freight trains were assumed per day and direction. However, the expected numbers of order could not be reached to this day. The digital train influence takes place via ETCS Level 2 without signals, which is innovative, but also associated with challenges.

freight traffic in change

Developments in freight transport are of great importance for the entire industry. According to the destatis.de , a variety of trends can be observed in German freight transport. The burdens and challenges caused by inadequate track capacities or infrastructural defects are often a hindrance for companies.

The old route and the newly built route will have to work in the future, especially with the completion of Stuttgart 21 planned in 2026. The combination of both routes could theoretically bring relief-however, only a low time saving of about 20 minutes is currently being realized for long-distance traffic, which questions the high investments.

Overall, it remains to be seen whether the originally announced revolution on the rail network will actually occur through the new route or whether the previous defects will continue to dampen the expectations.