The S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland keeps getting worse…
A blog post by jade arson., published on 2025-12-02.
A blog post by jade arson., published on 2025-12-02.
Side note: This is intended as a little tie-in to the talk from the Arsons about the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland and its consequences (which ended up derailing (pun intended) to a talk about every S-Bahn in Germany), held at MRMCD 2025. It’s not needed to watch that talk before reading through this, but if you want to, go ahead!
They, for some reason, decided to already implement some of the changes that were supposed to be there alongside the new Siemens Mireo trains.
They got rid of the S10 (which increased the intervals on the Leipzig Hbf - Leipzig Miltitzer Allee corridor), they removed one line from the city tunnel and worsened a regional line as well (the S6 replaces the RB 20 between Leipzig Hbf and Naumburg(Saale)Hbf), they removed another line towards Stötteritz (the S2 now goes to Connewitz instead), and speaking of Stötteritz: they extended the S1 to Döbeln, making not a single line terminate there anymore, and they also removed the direct connection towards Halle! instead, the S3 now replaces the S6 on the stretch from Leipzig Hbf to Geithain, also removing an extra line leading to Leipzig Messe.
Also, as a honorary mention: They basically decided to turn the Halle(Saale)Hbf to Halle-Trotha corridor into a ✨ high-capacity single track corridor ✨ (since only one of the two tracks leading to Trotha is electrified, and they’re not going to use the BEMUs on that stretch!), by extending the S5(X) coming from Zwickau into this corridor, removing the S47 from their network entirely while they’re at it.
Actually, I don’t know yet. This is only the beginning of the more recent S-Bahn network changes, but I feel like they will still not address the fundamental flaw of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland: its unneccesarily long stretches going all the way to Falkenberg(Elster), Zwickau, sometimes even Jüterbog and those lines that feel like they should be regionals instead (S7, S8, S9 and S11)…
…oh yeah, speaking of the S11: Did you know that this is the only “S-Bahn” line in the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland that runs with DMUs?
-well okay that’s technically a lie as it’s sometimes even just a single Alstom Coradia A TER!
I mean, hey, at least they’re going to have new rolling stock soon-ish, right…? 🥲
well, this still doesn’t address the issue that is the fragmentation of S-Bahn line operators.
yup, you read that correctly: The S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland is operated by not just one company (DB Regio AG Südost), but two of them (Abellio Mitteldeutschland), as of 2025-12-02!
And it’s only getting worse, since the lines between Leipzig and Halle (so, S3, S5 and S5X) are soon-to-be-operated by Die Länderbahn, who is known for the “famous” trilex lines (with which I have had two transmisic experiences by the conductors so far, both of them causing me and/or a friend of mine to almost get stranded in the middle of nowhere for at least an hour).
I genuinely don’t know, but if it keeps going this way, we might as well call everything an S-Bahn as soon as we see rolling stock used by at least some S-Bahn line/network…
You probably get what I mean by this...