Antarius

I am slated to take AMS - BER via Hanover (IC to ICE) in a couple of days. However, it appears that the the line is closed due to a freight accident near Wolfsburg. (https://railmarket.com/news/rolling-...over-is-closed)

What is the alternative? Has anyone experienced this in the last couple of days?

mlin32

Theoretically DB should allow you to request a refund if you're affected. Their website says alternatives are to reroute using Hamburg or postpone your travel.

Honestly, just fly between AMS and BER.

scubadu

I'm trying to better understand this situation as well. I have a DB account and we purchased two different ICE tickets for travel over the next week. I received an email from DB stating that one of my reservations was impacted by these closures. However, after researching this I'm not sure that my itineraries are actually impacted.

Our itineraries are:

• München - Nürnburg (Tues, Nov 29th) - ICE 720
• Nürnburg - Mainz (Thurs, Dec 1st) - ICE 928

Both are on ICE trains. The articles (and DB's message) seem to imply the impact is on routes between Berlin and Hanover. This doesn't at all seem like it impacts our journey unless it impacts the arrival of an inbound train that we need to catch or something.

I think this is currently a "don't care" for our plans, but since the email from DB explicitly said that the outage effected one of my reservations, and they know exactly which tickets I've purchased, I'm a little unsure...

Regards

:D!

You can use your ticket on any train you like until 23 December. There will still be trains running from Hanover to Berlin but they may be up to 90 minutes later than the usual timetable, and probably more crowded. You can also go via Hamburg. If you don't want to travel you can get a refund.

If you do travel you may be able to claim compensation for arriving 60 minutes or later than originally scheduled (I'm not sure how this works when you decide to travel on a different date or time, which you don't need to tell DB, and are then further delayed on the new itinerary which should have taken into account the known delays.)

Yeah it doesn't really make sense but there is going to be congestion in the north of Germany because of the line closure. Your trains continue into NRW so they may experience delays later on in their journey but I would guess that for your part of the route, the first train will be unaffected and the second will experience minimal effects. But German trains are always delayed for other reasons anyway ...

Antarius

Yea - Decided to fly instead. KLM nonstop was available for 5000 points - sweet.

Antarius

Made it. First time in BER as well, my last trip was pre-pandemic and into TXL. Now, I can check off THF, SXF, TXL and BER!

Thanks for the help.