New railway line Hamburg-Hannover: Coalition leans towards new construction

The ongoing dispute over a new railway line between Hamburg and Hanover is heading towards a decision: the responsible transport politicians from the black-red coalition in the Bundestag are in favor of a new building instead of an expansion in a draft resolution. The paper is available to the German Press Agency. NDR and “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” first reported.

However, the new building has not yet been decided. The coalition says the draft is still being worked on. Christoph Ploß (CDU), the federal government's maritime coordinator, said at an event in Hamburg on Wednesday: "The federal government is bringing the concept to the Bundestag for discussion, which can decide on it next week."

The new route along the Lüneburg Heath will shorten the travel time between Hamburg and Hanover to one hour, said Ploß. Above all, as Deutsche Bahn has repeatedly called for in recent years, the second high-performance route will provide relief for the existing high-speed rail line. Both passenger and freight transport should benefit from this. From Hamburg's perspective, this is important, especially for the transport of goods to and from Germany's largest seaport.

The Bundestag's transport committee is scheduled to deal with the new line planned by the railway on September 23rd. The committee and a day later the plenary session of the Bundestag should clear the way so that the railway can continue to specifically plan the new line. The discussion in the Bundestag is considered a decisive step for a new line.

The draft states that a new line would prove to be clearly preferable to an expansion “in all four main categories (spatial planning, environment, operation and costs) and therefore also in the overall assessment”. Among other things, the travel time between Hamburg and Hanover will be reduced by 18 minutes and dense areas will experience significantly less noise and vibrations. In addition, the reliability of transport will be increased and local transport will run half-hourly.

In the affected region of Lower Saxony, however, the expansion has been a hot topic for years: the state government is pushing for the Alpha-E expansion variant to be implemented. “This solution is really faster because it is the realistic one,” said Prime Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) in June. "The railway is planning something that has no chance of being effective for 30 years, if it has any chance of being implemented. But we have to focus on what can be done quickly and not on the option for our grandchildren."