
Deutsche Bahn shut down the Berlin-Hannover rail line early Friday for a 14-month overhaul, a company spokeswoman confirmed. The closure forces all long-distance trains onto detours via Braunschweig and Magdeburg, adding about 80 minutes to journeys and affecting every Berlin–North Rhine-Westphalia service that normally runs through Hannover. Regional passengers in many areas must switch to replacement buses, while Wolfsburg will have no long-distance stops at least through the end of the year and Stendal’s ICE halt is suspended, with no decision yet on 2027.
The work includes renewing hundreds of kilometers of tracks, switches and overhead lines, as well as modernizing roughly two dozen stations. The prolonged shutdown stems from the need to replace over 50 kilometers of solid concrete trackbed around Stendal. Originally, long-distance trains were to shift to the parallel Lehrter Stammbahn after the December timetable change, but electrification of that line is now delayed until December 2027.
Magdeburg gains three additional ICE connections to Hannover, North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin to offset some disruptions.
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