Progress is being made on the ESTW S8 North project. Yesterday, our team celebrated the successful partial commissioning of the S8 route in Berlin. On Monday morning, September 18th, 2023, the S-Bahn resumed regular service on the border between Brandenburg and North Berlin. However, the major project of establishing the infrastructure requirements for a new ESTW is far from complete.
Since July 12, the project team from ESTW S8 Nord, with support from various company departments and subsidiaries from the entire SPITZKE corporation, have been renewing the railway tracks between Schönfließ and Karower Kreuz. Along a stretch of approximately 15 km, they replaced track sleepers and carried out ballast cleaning. On the same stretch, our colleagues completely replaced the contact wires and installed 6,500 meters of parallel return conductors. Additionally, there is approximately 5 km of cable infrastructure work for the future ESTW, which is still far from being completed.
Our project leader, Mario, gives and overview of the project activities along the Brandenburg and Berlin border in this video.
In the final hours leading up to the end of the closure, our SPITZKE teams worked diligently to create all the necessary construction clearances. This involved relocating 30 kV and 15 kV cables and constructing three of the required track crossings in just a few hours. This was crucial in order to prepare for the establishment of another construction site for the installation of a switch trapeze and extensive cable infrastructure work along the Berlin-Blankenburg border starting October 20th.
The project management team expresses its gratitude for the partial commissioning to all those involved from the Großbeeren branch, the crews from the Track Machine department, SPITZKE LOGISTIK GmbH, and SPITZKE SCHWEISSTECHNIK GmbH, as well as the Equipment/Electrical Engineering department within the areas of track power, signaling technology, and cable infrastructure.
The project is going almost seamlessly. Further operations followed the next day for the long-distance railway, from October 20th on a large scale between Schönfließ and Pankow as well as starting on the 17th of November for the renewal of the long-distance railway.