General overhaul of the Riedbahn rail line

To improve quality, punctuality and significantly reduce disruption to the infrastructure, Deutsche Bahn (DB) will be bundling construction work on heavily used sections of track over the coming years and carrying out maintenance and investment measures as part of general overhauls lasting several months.

The legal basis for this work was established in the amendment to the German Federal Railway Infrastructure Development Act passed in June 2024. It specifies a total of 41 corridors that are to be generally overhauled. The aim is to improve the condition of the infrastructure within the shortest possible period of time. The renewal and modernization includes sleepers and ballast, tracks and points, signals and signal boxes as well as the stations. Once the work has been completed, no major construction work is usually required for several years. In addition, the refurbished sections will be significantly more efficient, will be equipped to a first-class standard and will be prepared for the digital rail operations of the future.

The so-called Riedbahn marks the start of this ambitious overhaul program. The approximately 70-kilometer route between Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim is located in the heart of Germany and connects the two metropolitan regions of Frankfurt/Rhine-Main and Rhine-Neckar. With over 300 freight and passenger trains running daily, this highly frequented route is one of the most heavily used corridors in Germany’s rail infrastructure. On individual sections of the route, capacity utilization is over 150 percent and delays that occur here affect the entire rail network. This makes the Riedbahn a bottleneck with a particular need for renovation and expansion.

Modernization work on the Riedbahn began on 15 July 2024. During a five-month line closure, 117 track kilometers, 152 points, 150 stops, 20 stations and 1,200 control and safety technology systems will be modernized and brought up to date to ensure the performance of this central section for the coming decades. For the duration of the closure, a traffic concept will ensure that passengers continue to reach their destinations reliably. For example, 150 modern replacement buses are deployed daily to replace local and regional services between Frankfurt and Mannheim. These cover around 1,000 journeys a day for the 15,000 passengers affected. Long-distance and freight traffic, on the other hand, will be rerouted during the work.

State-of-the-art electronic interlocking technology

100 days after the start of the Riedbahn, a significant milestone has been reached: The extensive inputs on rails, sleepers and ballast are nearing completion on schedule. In the last third of the general overhaul, the intensive phase begins, in which technicians install the new control and safety technology and gradually connect the electronic interlocking systems (ESTW). From the modern control stations of the new ESTW control centers in Walldorf, Gernsheim and Mannheim-Waldhof, large regional areas can be monitored and controlled at the click of a mouse.

European Train Control System for the Riedbahn

In addition to new interlocking technology, the new European Train Control System (ETCS) will also be used on the Riedbahn in future. Thousands of balises will be installed along the track by mid-December 2024 in order to store and transmit operational information to the trains. This train control system enables the standardization of signalling equipment and is intended to replace the more than 20 different train control systems in Europe in the long term. The general overhaul of the Riedbahn is due to be completed by the timetable change in mid-December 2024, meaning that regional, freight and long-distance trains will once again be able to run on schedule over the completely renovated Riedbahn from 15 December. This is a major step toward stabilizing rail operations and ensuring on-time and reliable train service over the long term.

Project information

• Frankfurt am Main – Mannheim
• Length of line: 70 km
• Underground cable installation along the line
• Partial track renewal, work on permanent way with switch renewals, switch dismantling
• Renewal of multiple railroad crossings
• New construction of GSM-R masts
• Construction of 3 central electronic signal boxes
• Construction of several module buildings along the route

DB E&C is also doing a remarkable job: even before the official start of the general overhaul, our teams were already working hard to upgrade the detour routes for long-distance and freight traffic on various sections. One outstanding example is the lifting of the railroad overpass in Hochspeyer, which was supervised by our colleagues from construction supervision in April 2024 in close cooperation with the construction companies involved.

Our team was also fully committed shortly before the start of the general overhaul. The routes through the Kupferschmelztunnel and the Imsweiler Tunnel were opened in time for the detour of freight traffic. Within just seven weeks, we succeeded in widening the tunnel cross-sections – thanks to intensive work such as anchor drilling, milling of stones and rock and the application of shotcrete.

In addition, DB E&C’s active support for the Riedbahn general overhaul includes design, validation and assessment, and environmental and geoservices. 

Scope of services

• Design
  • Superstructure
  • Drainage
  • Stations
  • Underground cable installation
  • Control-command and signaling (electronic interlocking and ETCS)
  • Electrical and overhead line equipment
  • Telecommunications
  • Noise-control systems
  • Railroad overpasses
  • Lightning Protection
• Construction supervision
  • Construction and operations planning
  • Implementation management
  • Multicopter flights and data provision in X2BIM including preparing and performing flights
• Validation and Assessment
  • Design review and validation testing services in the following areas
    • Control-command and signaling
    • Overhead line equipment
    • Electrical power systems
• Environmental and Geoservices
  • Preparation of geotechnical reports, base calculation, culverts, stations, signal brackets, etc.
  • Geotechnical consulting during the detailed design
  • Discipline-specific geotechnical construction supervision, acceptance and technical inspection
  • Geotechnical consulting during the detailed design
  • Preparing requests relating to water impact for submission to the German Federal Railway Authority (EBA) for
    • Discharging wastewater into bodies of water
    • Discharging substances into bodies of water
    • Using bodies of water during construction (dewatering measures)
  • Preparing requests relating to water impact for submission to the lower water authorities for the discharge of wastewater into public wastewater systems (indirect discharge)
  • Notifying the EBA of excavation and drilling that could affect the groundwater
  • Hydrogeological consulting during detailed design and construction
  • Surveying and creating transverse profiles at the site of planned signals
  • Providing surveying support for multicopter flights and Video2BIM recordings by setting and measuring ground control points
  • Installing and measuring reference points for the measuring train
  • Surveying culverts for structural engineering
  • Measuring the track geometry of side tracks and switches
  • Existing route alignment in the Mannheim-Waldhof station area
• Geotechnical monitoring
  • Post-landslide during first test closure in January 2024