The official feasibility study for building a railway tunnel along the Rhine Valley between Bonn and Wiesbaden concluded that it would be cheaper to build than had been thought in the past. The 118 km tunnel dedicated to freight would enable freight trains to avoid the narrow part of the Rhine Valley, where the infrastructure is in many places over 150 years old and creates unacceptable noise among communities along the valley. The route is one of the most important and heavily utilized railway routes in Europe, connecting the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp with Genoa, Italy. The project has been featured in both EIR and the EIR Eurasian Land-Bridge reports. The study, commissioned for the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse found that the project would cost €6.8 billion, rather than the €8-10 billion of previous estimates.
In an interview in Germany’s SWR TV on Aug. 12 Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) said the report was a “Thumbs up” for the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate and said: “It’s very gratifying that we have positive news from this feasibility study. Now the question is: How is the benefit-cost ratio to be assessed? And for that we need the traffic forecast for 2040. That’s the next step. But the first signal for the region is: thumbs up!”
