(In the 2nd paragraph it was specified that Deutsche Bahn is still assuming costs of 1.3 billion euros in connection with the damage caused by the flood catastrophe. The sentence “Pofalla estimated the costs of removal to be in the three-digit million range” was deleted .)
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – According to Deutsche Bahn, around 80 percent of the railway lines destroyed during the flood disaster in summer, especially in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, are back in operation. “For the remaining 20 percent, it will take years before this infrastructure can be put back into operation,” said infrastructure director Ronald Pofalla on Thursday at a conference on rail competition. “The damage to infrastructure caused by the flood was the greatest we have seen in post-war Germany.”
According to its own statements, the group is still assuming costs of around 1.3 billion euros.
As a result of the catastrophe, many more were added to the numerous construction sites on the network last year. “The huge construction volume has led to capacity bottlenecks and restrictions and I am aware that some of you were not always satisfied with the operational quality,” Pofalla said to the passengers. The challenges remained in the years to come. “We will invest 170 billion euros in the rail network in the 1920s.”
In addition to digitization, the modernization and expansion of the rail infrastructure are important prerequisites for creating more capacity for the transport transition to rail. At the moment, the main priority is to relieve the congested main corridors, said Pofalla. “That accounts for about 10 percent of the entire rail network.” However, he is confident that construction site management can be improved in the future to such an extent that passengers will have to contend with significantly fewer restrictions than last year./maa/DP/he