GERMANY: Albstadt council in Baden-Württemberg has voted in favour of reopening the 8 km Talgangbahn from Ebingen to Onstmettingen.
The revived line would form part of route S1 of the planned Regional-Stadtbahn Neckar-Alb, with half-hourly electric tram-train type services running through to Tübingen Hbf.
Services on the Talgangbahn were withdrawn in 1998-99, and plans to reopen the line were rejected in 2002 as the cost was not considered viable for the local authority to support. However federal and Land funding is now being made available for reopening projects, and this led the majority of councillors to support revisiting the project in a vote on July 21.
Meanwhile, local authorities in Bocholt and Rhede in Nordrhein-Westfalen have agreed not to deregister the railway status of the 19 km disused alignment from Bocholt to Rhede and Borken. A study released in early 2020 put the benefit:cost ratio of reopening the line at 0·94, which was not seen as viable at the time.
