238 railway lines closed for passenger traffic with a total length of more than 4000 kilometers has been proposed by the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) for reactivation. In the “Tech2go” podcast from Technology Review magazine, Martin Henke, VDV managing director for the railway sector, reports on the “immense” response to this proposal.

“I’ve been managing director at VDV for more than 000 years, but one of those There has never been a reaction, ”he said on the podcast. “An immediate reaction from politics was to equip the Municipal Transport Financing Act with considerably better conditions for reactivating and electrifying railway lines.” The federal government is now taking over 90 Percentage of the costs.

But why should a route be more affordable today than when it was closed? According to Henke, one reason for this is increased environmental awareness. Above all, however, the financing has changed. “At the time of the old Federal Railroad, some routes were shut down, just w eil they had many users – the DB made a loss with every ticket. Accordingly, she wanted to withdraw from local transport quickly. ”

This only changed in the mid-1990s with the regionalization law, which brought additional funding. “Only since then has rail passenger transport been worthwhile for transport companies,” says Henke. In the 1990 he and 2000 in the years there were many successful reactivations, for example the connections from Düsseldorf to Mettmann and Kaarst. In recent years, however, it has become “a little less”. The new attempt has now led to a “multitude of initiatives” among “mayors, district directors, district administrators, members of the state and Bundestag, chambers of industry and commerce”, reports Henke.

For many routes, the effort is to Reactivation is relatively low – for example, because the track is still used for freight traffic. But under suitable circumstances, a greater effort is worthwhile, up to and including the construction of a completely new route. “We are in discussion with the Federal Ministry of the Interior,” says Henke in the TR podcast. “It is very important that all German medium-sized centers can be reached by rail.” Of the roughly one thousand German medium-sized centers 123 not currently connected to the rail network – including cities such as Würselen, Niederkassel, Geesthacht or Taunusstein with at least 30.000 to 40. 000 inhabitants.

Editors of the innovation magazine Technology Review discuss important facts and significant absurdities, small anecdotes and big connections.

The expense of electrification is now lower than it used to be . For about 2000 the 4000 for Reactivation proposed kilometers, the construction of an overhead line is relatively easy. Further 1400 kilometers are suitable for battery-catenary hybrid trains. “There are already vehicles on the market that can travel up to 40 kilometers without a contact wire,” says Henke . The operating range of such trains could be expanded further by regularly installing a few kilometers of overhead contact line for “support electrification” to charge the batteries. “That is relatively inexpensive,” says Henke. “I am confident that it will work entirely without diesel or hydrogen.”

It will take some time before the first branch lines are actually revived. Henke: “This is a time-consuming decision-making process with municipalities, states and the federal government, which takes two years at best.”

The entire episode as an audio stream (RSS feed) for listening and downloading:

You will find an overview of the railway lines to be reactivated as well as further background information in the current TR edition 1 / 2021 (can be ordered now at the kiosk or here). (grh)