Deutsche Bahn closes the Rhine Valley Railway between Freiburg and Basel in October

Deutsche Bahn is closing the Rhine Valley Railway between Freiburg and Basel around the weekend at the beginning of October due to extensive construction work. The section between Freiburg (Breisgau) main station and Basel Badischer Bahnhof is affected, as Deutsche Bahn announced. As part of the four-track expansion of the Karlsruhe-Basel line, work is being done on, among other things, the new electronic signal box in Basel and the overhead line between Weil am Rhein and Basel. In addition, there will be maintenance work on overhead lines, switches and tracks in several sections.

During the work, the ICE lines Berlin-Switzerland and Hamburg-Cologne-Basel begin and end in Freiburg, the Hamburg-Kassel-Basel line ends in Karlsruhe. In Offenburg, all long-distance traffic stops will be eliminated due to further construction work. Between Freiburg and Basel and between Freiburg and Basel Badischer Bahnhof, buses are supposed to make up for the loss; between Karlsruhe and Zurich, five pairs of ICE trains are being rerouted via Singen every day.

There are also disruptions in regional transport

In regional traffic, the lines RE 7 Karlsruhe-Basel, RB 26 Offenburg-Freiburg and RB 27 Freiburg/Müllheim-Basel Badischer Bahnhof/Neuenburg between Freiburg and Basel Badischer Bahnhof are canceled. There are also temporarily no RB 26 trains running between Offenburg and Lahr; there are replacement connections via Friesenheim. As a replacement, several regional buses with different stops are in use between Freiburg, Markgräflerland and Basel.

The DB advises travelers to find out about their connection before starting their journey and to allow more time for alternative services due to longer travel times. Bicycles cannot be taken on the replacement buses; very large or heavy luggage should be avoided if possible.