Red-Green wants to postpone railway renovation if necessary

The SPD and the Greens in the Hamburg parliament want to prevent further delays in the construction of the S4 S-Bahn line between Hamburg and Ahrensburg (Stormarn district). The S-Bahn line has been pushed through the Hanseatic city and Schleswig-Holstein since the beginning of the 2000s, and the start of construction work has been repeatedly delayed. Construction of a section of the route is currently underway. The planning approval process is underway for the remaining sections - including the area around Rahlstedt train station.

Now the Hamburg-Lübeck railway line is being renovated by the railway. According to the red-green coalition, the closure necessary for the renovation should also be used to advance work on the S4. So far, the parliamentary groups do not see any interlinking of the two projects - although that would be advantageous for the construction of the S4. That is why they are calling on the Senate in a motion to put pressure on the Federal Ministry of Transport and the responsible railway subsidiary DB InfraGO to jointly plan the S4 construction work and the corridor renovation of the route to Lübeck.

During the six-month full closure for the route renovation, construction work could be carried out at Hamburg-Rahlstedt station that would otherwise require a temporary relocation of the station for two to three years. SPD transport politician Ole Thorben Buschmützer sees this as a “great opportunity”: If the conversion takes place during the corridor renovation, passengers could be spared a replacement station on Scharbeutzer Straße that will last for years. His goal is that “at the end of the corridor renovation, the S4 can also run on its own tracks to Rahlstedt”.

Green colleague Rosa Domm therefore called for both projects to be coordinated “closely in terms of time and organization”. Hamburg should lobby the federal government to ensure that the S4 work and the renovation of the Hamburg-Lübeck route in Wandsbek take place at the same time. In this way, additional restrictions for passengers and costs could be avoided. “A time difference between corridor renovation and S4 construction work threatens to lead to duplication of work, additional costs and additional closure breaks,” the application states. The citizens will vote on the application on November 25th, as the SPD and the Greens announced.

Project has already been delayed

At the time of the planning approval decision, the S4 was supposed to go into operation on the first section at the end of 2025, after which the S4 was supposed to go into operation to Rahlstedt in December 2027 and to run to Bad Oldesloe at the end of 2029. But then Deutsche Bahn postponed the corridor renovation, originally planned for the second half of 2027, to 2028.

The new S4 is intended to better connect the east of Hamburg and the surrounding area. The project envisages the construction of a double-track S-Bahn line from Hasselbrook to Ahrensburg and the construction of a single-track S-Bahn line from Ahrensburg to Ahrensburg-Gartenholz. The S-Bahn then uses the long-distance railway tracks to Bad Oldesloe. The S4 should run between Hamburg-Altona and Ahrensburg every 10 minutes during rush hour, every 20 minutes to Bargteheide and every hour to Bad Oldesloe.