Weeks of construction work starting October 5: ICE trips from Berlin to Leipzig and Frankfurt (Main) take longer

Deutsche Bahn will open three construction sites at the beginning of October. This leads to disruptions in train traffic for weeks: it takes about an hour longer from Berlin to Leipzig.

–

Rail travelers on the routes between Berlin and Leipzig as well as Berlin and Frankfurt am Main will have to be prepared for longer long-distance travel times from next weekend. The reason for this are three construction site sections that the company claims to be tackling simultaneously between October 5th and December 12th.

Accordingly, the ICE trains between Berlin and Leipzig will be diverted from October 5, the journey should Take 40 to 60 minutes longer [bauinfos.deutschebahn.com]. The trains do not stop in Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The ICE hourly service will basically remain, it said. An ICE journey from Berlin to Leipzig Central Station currently takes one hour and 14 minutes, and from Südkreuz one hour and four minutes.

Passengers traveling from Berlin to Frankfurt have to change trains on the route via Leipzig and cannot pass through as before. Deutsche Bahn recommends customers to bypass via Göttingen instead of Erfurt. Without changing trains, the journey takes just under four hours and 15 minutes.

–

According to Deutsche Bahn, there will be hardly any restrictions on the ICE route Berlin-Munich. The hourly connection should continue to be offered. Only the ICE Sprinter will have a few failures, it said.

Passengers in regional traffic between Ludwigsfelde (Brandenburg) and Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Saxony-Anhalt) must also expect longer travel times and replacement traffic. From October 5th to 20th, buses will run between Ludwigsfelde and Lutherstadt Wittenberg, as the railway announced. From October 21st, train traffic between Niedergörsdorf and Lutherstadt Wittenberg could be resumed. Buses are scheduled to run between Ludwigsfelde and Niedergörsdorf until December 12th.

The three construction sites are the renovation of the high-speed line in the Ludwigsfelde-Niedergörsdorf section (Teltow-Fläming district), a switch replacement on the Leipzig-Halle (Saale) line and the renovation of the Hönebach tunnel between Gerstungen in Thuringia and Bebra in Hesse . By bundling these three construction sites, Deutsche Bahn wants to shorten construction times.

–

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post said construction would begin on September 26th. That’s wrong, they start on October 5th. We have corrected the mistake and apologize for it.

–