ICE caught fire on German High Speed Line

There is an hourly commuterservice from Montabaur to Frankfurt am Main and v.v.. Departure is on the hour between 5 and 21 o'clock. Trains can except in Bonn Hbf also stop on the other side of the Rhein/Rhine in Bonn Beuel. Closure is expected to the end of this week. Sometimes trains from both directions can stop in Koeln Hbf or Deutz. Delays can reach 90 minutes.

Delays reach also the Netherlands. On Sunday the ICE 104 and 120 from Germany to Amsterdam were combined. The first should arrive at 21.58; the other at 23.26 in Amsterdam. Do not need to say in what train you want to be.

DB has put out a (German) press release stating that one track will be back in service on Saturday. The gist:

• The lesser damaged track will be put back in service on Saturday. About two thirds of services are planned to run. Delays and skipped stop are to be expected.
• Interim schedules are currently in the works and will be available by Friday. Until Friday next week all schedule media will be updated and the booking engine will be back up-to-date.
• Advance tickets up until Oct 19 can be used on any train. For unused tickets for last weekend and this week a refund can be requested.
• investigation on what caused the fire is still underway
• Analysis of the damaged infrastructure components is ongoing. Materials and engineering crew are on standby to get to work as soon it is clear how to proceed.

Question will be: how far north and south of the accident scene can the trains switch tracks (coming from the north)?

Groningen said:

Question will be: how far north and south of the accident scene can the trains switch tracks (coming from the north)?

Click to expand...

According to a post on Drehscheibe

Willroth (Km 61,5) to Montabaur (km 89,1) so 27,6 km.

To add to this there was a 1 hour delay on my ICE from Brussels this morning: diverted and cut short to start from Liege via the slow route to Aachen due to cable theft. Currently on the Bonn Hbf diversion route heading towards Frankfurt on a non-stop ICE 123. My first time sitting up front behind the driver on an ICE and it seems like there's a second person in the cab providing route guidance which makes for a more interesting ride!

The DB has provided details in the planned services starting on Staturday (https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/aktuell/index.shtml). As is is in German, a summary of the main points

• Two trains per hour will run between Cologne and Frankfurt in each direction. These trains will not call at Montabaur and Limburg Süd. Only very few trains will call at Siegburg/Bonn
• International trains to/from Brussels/Amsterdam will terminate in Cologne. Only certain trains in the morning and evening will run to Frankfurt (I guess this is done to get the trains to their maintenance facilities in Frankfurt-Griesheim).
• A special shuttle service will run between Frankfurt, Limburg Süd and Montabaur:
  • Hourly service on weekdays
  • every two hours on the weekend.
• Throughout the night the line will be closed for repair works. Trains within that time frame will be diverted via the Rhine Valley. First and last services along the high speed line will be:
  • Northbound:
    • ICE 222 Dep 5:29 Frankfurt Airport, Arr 6:32 Cologne Central (continues to Amsterdam)
      
    • ICE 526 Dep 21:04 Frankfurt Central, Arr 22:14 Cologne Deutz (continues to Dortmund)
  • Southbound
    • ICE 521 Dep 4:22 Cologne Central Station, Arr 5:27 Frankfurt Airport (continues to Munich)
      
    • ICE 221 Dep 21:12 Cologne Central, Arr 22:16 Frankfurt Airport

Normal service will start from November 18, 2018.