Deutsche Bahn invests 13.6 billion in railway infrastructure

This year, Deutsche Bahn invests 13.6 billion euros in the railway infrastructure of Germany. This is around 900 million euros more than in the previous year. The railway company is modernising and renewing around 1,800 kilometers of track, 2,000 points, 140 bridges and 800 stations. With this program, it primarily wants to create more capacity in the rail network and make the existing infrastructure more efficient.

Ronald Pofalla, board member for Infrastructure at Deutsche Bahn (DB): “We are building more than ever before – a real tour de force! We can only achieve this with a strong team, with motivated and committed employees. To this end, we are hiring 4,800 additional engineers and specialists for expansion and maintenance this year alone.”

More and new railways

This year’s investment offensive has two major focal points: Firstly, DB is creating more space on the rails, for freight as well as passengers. This means expansion of existing railways and construction of new infrastructure.

On the other hand, DB is rolling out several digitisation projects. The focus is on the work on the digital node in Stuttgart and the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor from Hamburg via Erfurt and Munich to the Austrian border near Kufstein. At the same time, the expansion with ETCS, the most modern control and safety system with European standards, continues. In the summer, the first digital interlocking to control trains on a high-speed line will go into operation in Donauwörth.

Construction works nuisance

In addition to the major future projects, DB continues to ensure that the existing network is kept fit. The DB also relies on small and medium-sized measures to make the rails strong and less prone to failure. The installation of additional switches and the use of temporary bridges should ensure that the train traffic runs reliably even during construction work.

Over the last few months there has been fierce criticism about the availability of the German railway network. Construction works were carried out intensively due to which many parts of the network were out of service. According to the industry, this led to complete standstills at some points.

Bundling construction works

DB says that in order to ensure a high-quality offer for customers in passenger and freight transport despite the high construction volume, it will bundle construction measures even more intensively and efficiently than before.

Ronald Pofalla: “Higher investments also mean more construction volume in our network. Customer-friendly and capacity-saving construction is right at the top of the agenda. To this end, we will further intensify our cooperation with the construction industry and carry out construction work even faster and more reliably.”