Delays in building a rail link between the new Fehmarn Belt tunnel and the railway on the German mainland could set the project back years, according to new reports.
A document from Germany’s federal railway authority, the Eisenbahn-Bundesamt, has been reported by Danish regional media sn.dk as stating that it will take Germany’s national rail company Deutsche Bahn six and a half years to construct a 2.2-kilometre railway tunnel between the island of Fehmarn and the German mainland.
The tunnel is needed in order to connect the mainland German rail network to the Fehmarn Belt link, an 18-kilometre underwater tunnel currently under construction.
The link, which is scheduled for completion in 2029 and will also carry road traffic, will connect Rødbyhavn on the Danish island of Lolland with Fehmarn in Germany.
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Construction of the additional tunnel on the German side has yet to receive final approval and is therefore yet to start. Given the six-year build time, this means trains are unlikely to begin running across the Fehmarn Belt before the end of 2032 at the earliest.
The company Femern A/S, which is part of Sund & Bælt, is directing the Danish side of the tunnel project. The company did not comment directly on the reported directive from the German rail authority.
“We are aware of articles currently circulating in the German media about the Fehmarn Sound tunnel,” Sund & Bælt head of media communications Jens Villemoes told Ritzau in a written comment.
“Should the timetable for the German infrastructure change, we expect the German government to inform the Danish government,” he added.
Danish transport minister Thomas Danielsen told news wire Ritzau he had been informed of a directive issued by the German rail authority which states that the build time for the second tunnel would be six years.
“My ministry has contacted the German Ministry of Transport to request a detailed clarification,” the minister told Ritzau, adding he was “following the matter closely.”
Danielsen stressed that cars and other road traffic will still be able to cross the Fehmarn once the Denmark-Germany link is completed. That is because there is already a road bridge, the Fehmarn Sound Bridge, between the island of Fehmarn and mainland Germany.
However, earlier reports have suggested that the project may also face a delay for the road connection.
In its annual report in 2024, Sund & Bælt wrote that the scheduled opening of the road crossing in late 2029 was “a significant challenge.”
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