Planned Developments
The station lies is at the junction of lines from Stuttgart, Basel, Saarbrücken and Frankfurt. The Mannheim-Stuttgart high-speed rail line was completed in 1991 and it is planned to build a high-speed line to Frankfurt. Deutsche Bahn had sought to establish a by-pass of the city through the Rheinauer Wald (forest) to the east of the city, including a complex junction in the Pfingstberg Tunnel. This would have substantially reduced the number of long-distance trains serving Mannheim, leading to massive resistance from the city and the region. As a result, Deutsche Bahn dropped this plan for the time being in 2006.
Extensive changes at the railway tracks of the main station are planned over a three year construction period. Construction was supposed to have started in late 2007, but had not begun by early 2010. Among other things, a new platform is to be built for the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn for approximately € 50 million. In addition, regional and long-distance traffic are to be largely segregated, with regional trains being operated in the future on the four tracks closest to the station building and long-distance traffic operating on the more distant tracks.
As part of an urban development project called Mannheim 21 on land on the south side of the station, there are plans to convert the most southerly underpass under the platforms, now used as a baggage tunnel, into a third platform access route and extend it to the Lindenhof; it would not connect to the station building, but would instead connect to the bus station. The current southern underpass, which runs under the middle of the platforms, is frequently overloaded by pedestrian traffic.
Due to the increasing number of passengers using the station forecourt at the interchanges to public transport (currently around 52,000 daily) an upgrade of the Hauptbahnhof tram/light rail stop is proposed. Two versions are discussed: option 1, which includes four new platforms laid across the axis of the whole Kaiserring, is preferred by the city council. Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr (Rhine-Neckar Transport) favours option 2 because it would be more practicable and would add an additional track to the tram stop.
Read more about this topic: Mannheim Central Station
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