Missing Electrification
Poland completed the electrification of the route on its side of the border – between Zgorzelec and Wrocław in 2019. But currently the electrification masts end in the middle of the bridge over the Neiße between Zgorzelec and Görlitz. Between Görlitz and the edge of Dresden, via Bautzen, only diesel trains run. Electrification of the route has long been planned but has not been started. Although there are hourly trains between Zgorzelec and Görlitz, the lack of electrification limits the potential for the line, especially for long distance through trains between Wrocław and Dresden, and for the sake of decarbonisation, electrification makes sense. The trains that operate the RE1 route between Görlitz and Dresden also have limited capacity – an electrified line would help increase this.
What needs to be done: Germany needs to electrify the line between the Neiße Bridge at Görlitz and the edge of Dresden (100km)
European Commission Analysis
In 2018 the European Commission published its “Comprehensive analysis of the existing cross-border rail transport connections and missing links on the internal EU borders”. The main report (74 pages, PDF) summarises the issues, and Annex 3 of the report (384 pages, PDF) analysed every single border.
For the sake of simplicity, I have made a PDF just of the relevant pages of Annex 3 that cover Dresden-Görlitz-Zgorzelec – you can find that PDF here.
Photos from this location
