Magdeburg’s railway bridge will be closed to train traffic from April 24th to September 10th. That means for them Railway line Magdeburg-Burg-Berlin im Detail:
–
- The Regionaexpress line 1 Magdeburg-Berlin will be replaced by buses between Magdeburg main station and Magdeburg Herrenkrug. The RE 1 stops at all subway stations between Herrenkrug and Burg, which extends the travel time to Berlin.
- As a bypass via Stendal, additional trains will run between Magdeburg and Stendal every two hours in order to ensure a connection to the IC line Amsterdam-Berlin with just 10 minutes. The journey Magdeburg-Berlin takes only 6 minutes longer via this connection than without a construction site with the RE 1.
- The regional trains Braunschweig-Magdeburg-Burg are canceled in the time between Magdeburg and Burg.
- Additional direct buses between the castle and the Magdeburg bus station should allow the usual half-hourly service.
- The individual IC and ICE trains between Magdeburg and Berlin are diverted via Stendal. This means that for the first time there is a daily ICE connection between Stendal and Magdeburg.
- The Harz-Berlin-Express runs from Halberstadt via Aschersleben, Bernburg, Köthen, Dessau, Potsdam Medienstadt Babelsberg to Berlin. The travel time between the Harz and the capital is increased by around half an hour.
–
In addition, four weeks before and after the full closure, only one track will be available on the Magdeburg Elbe Bridge, which is why there will be restrictions on train traffic from the end of March and the beginning of October. Nahverkehrsservice (NASA) GmbH explained to MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT: “The exact travel offer is currently being coordinated.”
–
Also from April 24th to September 10th the Biederitz-Rodleben railway line refurbished. This means for this connection in detail:
–
- There are no trains between Magdeburg and Gommern or Güterglück, but buses.
- Contrary to what was planned, Güterglück station will not be rebuilt in 2021. Zerbst will also remain connected to the rail network during the construction work.
- The construction site can be bypassed between Magdeburg and Dessau: with the IC via Köthen and direct connection to Dessau.
–
Flixtrain: Stendal instead of Halle and Wittenberg
The private long-distance train operator Flixmobility is again changing its Flixtrain service in Saxony-Anhalt. Only a year ago, Halle was added to the timetable as a stop on the Berlin-Stuttgart connection. This chapter ended in March because of the corona pandemic. According to media reports there was then a dispute between Flixtrain and the contractor Leo Express, whose German branch has now filed for bankruptcy. Flixmobility spokeswoman Franziska Schleicher told MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT that the connection should be resumed in the medium term. When cannot be said yet. The stop in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, which was only introduced at the end of 2019, has also been abandoned. Since the end of July, the Leipzig-Berlin-Aachen connection has only started in Berlin.
–
With the 2021 timetable, Flixmobility is now trying again with Saxony-Anhalt. From mid-December the Berlin-Hanover-Cologne line will travel across the Altmark. Unlike in previous years, the Flixtrain stops on this connection in Stendal. The district town will be connected to Cologne on Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday at around 3 p.m. The return train drives back to Berlin on Thursday, Friday and Sunday at around 9 p.m. Flixtrain advertises ticket prices from 9.99 euros.
As the reason for the stop in Stendal, Flixmobility announced that they wanted to “serve not only metropolises and metropolitan areas but also rural regions in which other long-distance connections are often missing.”
–
Altmark will be an ICE hub – but only temporarily
The great ICE era will begin in Altmark in 2021. And it ends again. The Stendal-Uelzen railway line was rebuilt and electrified after the fall of the Berlin Wall to serve as an alternative route for the Hamburg-Berlin ICE line. Now the time has come.
–
The renovation work on the Stendal train station, which has been ongoing since May 2019 – new platforms are being built and a barrier-free pedestrian tunnel – are also coming at the right time.
When the Berlin-Hamburg ICE route is built from September 11, 2021, the express trains will be diverted via Salzwedel and Stendal – and will also stop there. For Salzwedel, ICE is a first on the timetable. So far, only a handful of ICE trains stop in Stendal, for example in the early morning or late evening. From September there will be temporarily over 30 additional ICE trains per day.
This also opens up new opportunities for train travel to and from the Altmark:
–
- For the first time since 1993 there is a daily direct connection between Stendal, Salzwedel and Kiel.
- There will also be ICE connections to Munich every day – even several times. Direct trips of this kind were previously only possible during the flood diversion in summer and autumn 2013.
- Even the Salzwedel-Stendal connection will be available as an ICE ticket. However, such a journey does not offer a time advantage over regional transport.
–
However, while the ICE trains run on the tracks in the Altmark from September to December 2021, shortfalls must be made for regional traffic. Since the capacity of the routes is limited, the regional trains between Stendal and Salzwedel are canceled, but the regional express of this line stops at all intermediate stations. On the other hand, there will be no local transport between Salzwedel and Uelzen.
–
Altmark-Interregio is still in the stars
From Salzwedel and Stendal without changing to Hamburg and Berlin: What will only be possible in autumn 2021 due to construction work – until a few months ago there was a regular connection via Interregio-Express (IRE). The offer was introduced in September 2014 as an inexpensive connection to direct ICE traffic between the metropolises on the Spree and Elbe.
–
Since March of this year, however, the IRE trains, which the railway operates independently, have been regularly out of service. In mid-September, the railway finally announced the end of the connection until the timetable change, for “operational reasons”, as it was called. When MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT asked whether the IRE will be offered again by Altmark from December 13, 2020, Deutsche Bahn replied at the beginning of October that this would be checked. In the now published timetable for 2021, the IRE appears again as a precaution.
Noteworthy: The IRE trains have not stood still in the past few weeks. The cars were used as amplifier trains in regional traffic between Berlin and the Baltic Sea.
–
Abellio does not want to give up after problems
The private railway operator Abellio, which operates around half of the rail network in Saxony-Anhalt, recently hit the headlines because of financial difficulties. The background to this is that the originally calculated costs for personnel and operations have skyrocketed – for example due to collective bargaining agreements and construction sites. As the company MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT explained, price increases were included in the contract with the regional public transport company. According to Abellio, the magnitudes now reached were “not foreseeable at the time”. The company firmly rejected a media report from the weekend that Abellio was considering discontinuing train services in Germany.
–
In general, passengers don’t have to worry that we will leave them on the platform from 2021. The discussions we hold with our clients are aimed at ensuring long-term operations.
–
–
Abellio is doing everything to keep the traffic supply upright and stable. After train bottlenecks in the summer, the maintenance backlog has now been dealt with, said company spokesman Matthias Neumann. In order to enable train operations to continue despite increased costs, discussions were still ongoing with the clients. NASA also confirmed this in response to an MDR request. “The trains will continue to run as usual in the future,” said spokesman Wolfgang Ball, referring to the problems affecting railway companies across Germany.
–
Tickets: Higher prices for long-distance and local transport
With the timetable change on December 13, 2020, some tickets will be more expensive. According to Bahn, the prices in Long-distance transport for flex tickets increased by an average of 1.5 percent. Season tickets and the Bahncard 100 are expected to be 1.9 percent more expensive on average. The prices for the remaining Bahncards and tickets at the saver price should not be increased – their prices will then only increase again at the turn of the year with the return to the higher VAT rates.
Im Regional traffic in Saxony-Anhalt the discounted package tickets for occasional travelers are becoming more expensive again. New rules apply to this: a maximum of three children between the ages of 6 and 14 travel free of charge on these tickets – they no longer have to be related to the passenger.
–
– .
/nginx/o/2018/10/14/11497943t1h4ec7.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1)