Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – A regional train is to run every hour on the new line between Ulm and Wendlingen from December. This will initially shorten the travel time between Ulm and Stuttgart by four to seven minutes, as the Ministry of Transport announced on Monday in Stuttgart. “The greater leap in travel time reduction follows with the commissioning of Stuttgart 21,” said Transport Minister Winfried Hermann (Greens). It is targeted for 2025.
Because of the heavy traffic between Wendlingen, Plochingen and Stuttgart, the trains could not be routed directly to Stuttgart. In Wendlingen, travelers would therefore have to change to the Neckar-Alb railway, it said. The new route between Ulm and Reutlingen leads to a travel time reduction of 30 to 40 minutes. A completely new stop was also created in Merklingen on the Swabian Alb.
Even if the route only covers part of the planned route between Stuttgart and Ulm, it is dangerous not to use it now, Hermann continued. “Because then all sorts of bats would probably colonize the towers in the next three years, and then we would start the project all over again.”
The approximately 60-kilometer-long route between Ulm and Wendlingen is part of the high-speed network of Deutsche Bahn and the Stuttgart-Ulm railway project. With the planned commissioning of Stuttgart 21 in 2025, the travel time between Stuttgart and Ulm should be around half an hour shorter. The new section of the line cost around four billion euros.
