Conrad Rausch already knows what to expect. Some days it will be “terrible,” he says. The Hamburg native is one of the many people who regularly travel by train between Germany’s two largest cities. It won’t be long before the direct connection between Berlin and Hamburg is interrupted again due to construction work – for four months. The next closure will follow in 2025, and will last for nine months. Now long-distance commuter Rausch tells us what that means for him.
On August 16th, at 10 p.m., the time has come. Construction work will once again take place on the Hamburg railway, one of the oldest and most heavily used long-distance railway lines in Germany – this time until December 14th. Between Wittenberge and Ludwigslust, Büchen and Hamburg, and around Hagenow Land, Deutsche Bahn is having more than 74 kilometers of tracks and a hundred switches renewed. Expected costs: 220 million euros.
Deutsche Bahn halves long-distance train service between Berlin and Hamburg
Conrad Rausch is aware of the consequences. After all, this is not the first closure between Berlin and Hamburg that he and the other passengers have had to deal with. In 2009, 260,000 sleepers had to be replaced because the concrete was crumbling. In 2021, the approximately 290-kilometer-long route was again interrupted for three months.
“There will be fewer long-distance trains between Berlin and Hamburg, and the trains that are still running are fuller than usual. It will be terrible on Fridays and Sundays,” says the Hamburg resident. The number of trains will be halved, to one per hour in each direction. But that’s not all: “The journey will take significantly longer again because the ICE trains will be diverted via Stendal and Uelzen,” says the regular rail customer. “And on the bypass route, the WiFi will give up the ghost again because the network coverage is particularly poor there.”
Arrived! Conrad Rausch has arrived at Berlin Central Station on the Intercity Express (ICE). He has been travelling frequently between Hamburg and Berlin for almost ten years.Conrad Rausch
Today, you can still travel from Berlin to Hamburg main station in 105 minutes by ICE. Sometimes, according to the schedule, it takes almost two hours. From the evening of August 16, passengers will have to plan for more time. Sometimes, according to the schedule, they will be traveling for 146 minutes, then again for 165 minutes. There is usually only one track between Stendal and Uelzen. For years, there have been calls to double-track this part of the former America line to Bremen – without success. This is why local passengers on this section also suffer: they have to take the bus, and regional trains are cancelled.
Conrad Rausch is an entrepreneur. In 2003 he founded the agency rausch communications & pr in Hamburg, which has had an office in Berlin since 2014. This is not the only reason why the 59-year-old is often in the capital: he is also the spokesperson for the Die Mitte location association, a network with around 170 members from the retail, real estate, culture, services, hotel and catering sectors. When the district and senate had a section of Friedrichstrasse converted into a pedestrian area with cycle lanes, Rausch had a lot to do.
“I’ve been travelling between Hamburg and Berlin quite often for almost ten years,” says the frequent traveller. “Mostly by train, of course – the best alternative, as long as everything works and is in order. I don’t like taking the car so much. In Berlin I don’t know where to park it, here I travel differently.” For example, by bike.
“Sometimes I get the impression that someone is playing tricks on me”
As a shrewd regular customer of the federal company, Conrad Rausch knows how to avoid stress. “Whenever possible, I travel back to Hamburg on Thursday or Friday morning. Certainly not on Friday afternoon, when the trains are full,” he reveals. “And before the journey, I check on my cell phone what my train is doing. Did it leave Munich on time?”
The agency boss says he can work well on the train. “I’m happy to do without a car. But sometimes I get the impression that someone is playing a prank on me. Even in normal operation, there are always problems. A signal malfunction, a train’s engine malfunction, the carriage sequence being reversed – it’s all happened before. It’s part of everyday life.”
During the European Football Championship, Rausch suddenly heard an announcement on the ICE Hamburg-Berlin. The train would not go to the main station “unscheduled” but to Gesundbrunnen station and would end there. Bad luck for the passengers who wanted to change in Berlin. They had to find their way.
Berlin Central Station can get crowded. But Hamburg Central Station is much worse, says the train customer. This station is overloaded almost around the clock. “When the departure platform changes, it’s really stressful.” In the crowds, it can be difficult to get to the platform on time. The escalators are often broken, and because the station is so heavily used, it can get disgusting. If possible, travelers should avoid this station. “Unfortunately, that’s not always possible” – since the timetable change, fewer long-distance trains have stopped at Dammtor and Altona. “In comparison, Berlin Central Station is an oasis.”
But even in the greatest stress, there are red lines that, in his opinion, should not be crossed, says Conrad Rausch. When train attendants are unfriendly and information is not provided, he too gets annoyed. “The worst thing is the uncertainty about when and how things will continue in the event of delays. The railway is doing a lot to get people to drive their cars again,” he says.
An Intercity Express (ICE) stops on platform 14 in Berlin Central Station. In this area, the usable part of the platform is just about two meters wide. An expansion has been announced, but is not currently planned.Peter Neumann/Berliner Zeitung
Conrad Rausch has been travelling to the east of Germany since he was a child. “We drove to Greifswald by car. The controls at the GDR border were exciting,” he remembers. “The back seat had to be removed and then everything was examined very carefully. As a West German child, I had never experienced anything like that.” Later, he also travelled to the GDR by train. These trips also seemed like adventures to him, says the man from Hamburg. Back then, express trains were still pulled by steam locomotives and in winter it could be cold in the carriages of the GDR Reichsbahn.
For Conrad Rausch and the other passengers, the next interruption is already in sight. As reported, the Hamburg railway will be closed again from August 1, 2025 to April 30, 2026. It will then be completely closed almost along its entire length between Berlin-Spandau and Hamburg-Rothenburgsort. This means that, unlike this year, important Berlin commuter destinations such as Falkensee, Brieselang and Nauen will be cut off from the rail network. This means that in 2025/26, many passengers traveling between Havelland and Berlin will have to switch to buses.
Left Party MP from Brandenburg: Federal government has “no clue”
Christian Görke (Left Party), a member of the Bundestag for Brandenburg, wants to know from the federal government how many people in the state are affected by the general renovation. However, the Ministry of Transport cannot provide him with the average daily passenger numbers on the RE2, RE8, RB10 and RB14 lines. The federal government does not have the data for these routes, replied the federal government’s railway commissioner, Michael Theurer (FDP).
“Just imagine: The Hamburg-Berlin route will be closed for nine months for a general renovation, and one year before the work begins, there is no indication of the scale of the necessary replacement regional transport on the Wittenberge-Berlin section,” Görke told the Berliner Zeitung. “The answer is a confession of failure in terms of transport policy and shows that the federal government and the railway are flying blind.” The MP expects “immediate data” so that the rail replacement service can be planned.
Railway customer Conrad Rausch has other wishes. The single-track bottleneck between Stendal and Uelzen must finally be removed, and the bypass route expanded to two tracks throughout, he demands. As far as WiFi is concerned, the “dead zones of Saxony-Anhalt” should be eliminated. If there are any problems, the railway should give its passengers a drink more often than it does today.
The biggest wish is: “That the ICE trains leave on time and arrive on time.” This should actually be the standard that customers don’t have to ask for. But it shows the level that the railways in Germany have now reached.
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