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Letter from Berlin: Ministry buries Dorfener rail trough

2022-02-22T05:04:26.448Z


Letter from Berlin: Ministry buries Dorfener rail trough Created: 02/22/2022, 06:00 By: Timo Aichele The future: This visualization shows the preliminary plans for the Dorfen train station with noise protection walls. © DB Netz AG In a letter to Mayor Heinz Grundner, the Ministry of Transport announced: The federal government will not bear the additional costs for the rail trough desired in Do


Letter from Berlin: Ministry buries Dorfener rail trough

Created: 02/22/2022, 06:00

By: Timo Aichele

The future: This visualization shows the preliminary plans for the Dorfen train station with noise protection walls.

© DB Netz AG

In a letter to Mayor Heinz Grundner, the Ministry of Transport announced: The federal government will not bear the additional costs for the rail trough desired in Dorfen when the railway is expanded.

A new report puts the difference at 72 million euros.

Dorfen

– There will be no lowering of the tracks in the town of Dorfen.

Due to additional costs of 72 million euros, the Federal Ministry of Transport is abandoning this “Dorfen preferential solution” as part of the large-scale ABS 38 project. The construction of the section with a rail trough would therefore be more than twice as expensive as planning the railway with total costs of 126 million euros.

This is the result of a review of the cost estimates by the German Center for Rail Transport Research (DZSF).

Mayor Heinz Grundner received the result in black and white on Monday in a letter from the Federal Ministry of Transport.

The decisive sentence: "Since the federal government is not in a position to bear the additional costs on the given legal basis, DB Netz AG will continue with its planning as the most economical variant." VR) planned on behalf of the town of Dorfen.

According to information from our newspaper, the result of the decisive review had been available to the ministry since October and the letter was still on the table ready for signature during Minister Andreas Scheuer's (CSU) term of office.

Only Michael Theurer, Parliamentary State Secretary under the new Minister Volker Wissing (FDP), now announces the bad news.

"That was not unexpected," explains Mayor Grundner on Monday when asked.

The city has so far assumed additional costs of 15 to 30 million euros for the VR planning.

After the ministry refused to finance the additional costs, the city would have to step into the breach on its own.

"I'm assuming that we can't budget for a good double-digit million amount," says Grundner.

Now he still has to examine the DZSF study closely.

At first glance, however, the report is quite "clear" with around 30 pages.

Member of the Bundestag Andreas Lenz (CSU), who also had a copy of this letter in his mailbox on Monday, sees it that way.

"A few questions arise," he says after reading it for the first time.

The largest chunk of land acquisition was estimated at 48 million euros.

This sum should be questioned.

On behalf of the ministry, scientists at the DZSF have carried out a plausibility check on the cost estimates of the two competing models: DB planning and the VR concept.

The Dresden scientists estimate the total costs of the VR planning at 126 million euros, that of the DB variant at 54 million euros.

These figures are close to the calculation that DB Netz AG had made for the two variants (107 million versus 61 million euros) - but extremely far from Vieregg's figures (61 million versus 66 million euros).

"The VR calculation does not seem plausible," concludes State Secretary Theurer in his letter.

The DZSF does not fundamentally rule out that the VR variant can be implemented.

However, there are “larger cost risks from correcting potential violations of standards,” the ministry wrote to Mayor Grundner.

This applies in particular to the covered trough - the heart of Martin Vieregg's planning.

In the course of detailed planning, completely different costs could arise and a loss of time of several years could be caused, the letter goes on to say.

On the other hand, the decision for the well-advanced DB planning can progress quickly.

"If everything goes well, we will be able to start the legal planning process at the end of the year," explains Klaus-Peter Zellmer, overall project manager of the large-scale ABS 38 project at DB Netz AG, when asked about this new development.

In this case, the public could probably be informed about the exact planning in the middle of the year - depending on the pandemic situation in a citizens' meeting or online via webcast.

Zellmer now sees himself confirmed.

The 58-year-old civil engineer with decades of experience in international large-scale infrastructure projects had always doubted Vieregg's figures, but also explained: "We build everything that can be financed." According to the DZSF report, however, the VR rail trough is obviously not.

Some "inconsistencies" in the VR concept made him suspicious from the start, says Zellmer.

As a civil engineer, he simply could not understand how civil engineering near Vieregg could be cheaper, even though 600,000 cubic meters more excavation would have been necessary for the rail trough.

Now the DB concept will probably be implemented.

The plan envisages two tracks on the existing route.

It includes noise barriers up to four meters high.

"We don't drive through the town center," says Zellmer - and: So far there has been no noise protection at all.

The change at the intersection with the B 15 will be striking: instead of the barrier, a 3.5 meter high road bridge will be built.

Here the wishes of the villagers are met as far as possible, says the project manager.

"The B 15 will then be almost a meter lower than originally planned." To achieve this, points will be moved to the east so that they do not lie under the bridge and then make it necessary to be higher.

As a consequence, the station will also slide about 100 meters to the east.

Another major wish of the city is in the area of ​​the train station: a pedestrian tunnel to the future district on the site of the former Meindl brickworks.

However, it is questionable whether the federal government will assume the additional costs of an estimated six million euros.

"There is no legal basis," says Zellmer.

Because today the Meindl area is actually a brownfield site and still a commercial area in terms of building regulations.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-02-22

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