Some trains have been diverted on the main railway line through the Ruhr area since Monday evening. However, train passengers and especially commuters were apparently well prepared for the failures, so that the feared chaos at the stations in Dortmund, Bochum or Essen did not materialize on Tuesday morning during rush hour.
By Thursday morning, Deutsche Bahn plans to lay more than 3,800 meters of new rails between Dortmund Central Station and Bochum-Langendreer. 630 sleepers and 600 tons of gravel are to be replaced. During the modernization work, which cost a good one million euros, there will be restrictions in local and long-distance traffic.
The National Express lines RE1, RE6 and RE11 are particularly affected. RE6 and RE1 were diverted on Monday evening and no longer stopped in Mülheim/Ruhr, Essen, Wattenscheid and Bochum. Substitute stops were Oberhausen, Essen-Altenessen, Gelsenkirchen and Herne. The RE11 also sometimes did not stop between Dortmund and Duisburg. The other RE11 trains via Dortmund-Hörde and Unna are scheduled to run. The S1 was not affected by the closures, it said.
Long-distance traffic is also restricted by the construction site. According to DB, the long-distance trains between Dortmund and Duisburg or Cologne are diverted and do not stop in Bochum and Essen. Depending on the detour, they will not stop in Mülheim, Duisburg, Düsseldorf Airport and Düsseldorf Hbf until Thursday morning.
All timetable changes are included in the online information systems of DB and VRR and are also announced on notices on the platforms. In addition, the changes can be viewed at “bauinfos.deutschebahn.com/nrw”, “zuginfo.nrw” and via the “DB Bauarbeiten” app.
