Germany’s Federal Railway Authority has approved plans to upgrade a section of railway between Müllheim-Auggen as part of a wider expansion of the Rheintalbahn.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) has been cleared to deliver a €200 million upgrade which will see two more lines added to the six-kilometre double-track railway.
A financing agreement for the project, which will increase the section’s maximum line speed to 250 km/h, has been in place since 2012.
It is small component of the Karlsruhe-Basel line capacity upgrade scheme. New line’s are being laid along the Rheintalbahn route, which connects Basel, Karlsruhe and Mannheim, to allow for the segregation of slower freight and local services from intercity traffic, removing bottlenecks and creating additional capacity.
The first new Rheintalbahn lines were opened in 2004 between Rastatt-Süd and Offenburg. Another major milestone was the opening of the Katzenberg tunnel in 2012.
