Home » News » Disruption to Cross-border Rail Connection between Freiburg and Mulhouse due to Staff Shortage: Update October 2023

Disruption to Cross-border Rail Connection between Freiburg and Mulhouse due to Staff Shortage: Update October 2023

This time, the meeting of the local councils of Freiburg and Mulhouse is likely to be about a rail connection, which will seriously disappoint many in the German-French border area.

For the first time in over seven years, the local councils of Freiburg and the Alsatian city of Mulhouse will meet on Thursday (5.30 p.m.). According to reports, the cross-border transport connection from Müllheim, south of Freiburg, to Mulhouse (Mulhouse) will also be discussed at the meeting in eastern France.

To the detriment of commuters and travelers, no trains will run on the route for several months because the French railway company SNCF lacks suitable employees. Buses are on the way to replace them, but according to media information they take longer to cover the route.

According to information from the town hall there, Mayor Michèle Lutz and Freiburg’s Mayor Martin Horn (non-party) will sit at the table at the meeting in Mulhouse. The two large municipalities on the Upper Rhine have been linked by a city friendship since 1990. The local councilors last met in June 2016 in Freiburg, as the Freiburg city administration announced upon request.

The replacement service on the cross-border route between Müllheim (Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district) and Mulhouse will last at least until December, as an SNCF spokeswoman confirmed upon request. There are not enough platoon drivers with skills for both countries. The reopening of the railway line in 2012 was seen as an important signal for the German-French partnership in the region.

Freiburg’s town hall boss, Horn, criticized deficiencies in regional cross-border train traffic last year: “We are dissatisfied with the speed, timing, reliability and punctuality,” he said at the time.

© dpa | 12.10.2023 05:44

#Local #councilors #Freiburg #Mulhouse #talk #rail #problems

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