Start of the holidays in NRW Hardly any traffic jams and few long waits at airports
Cologne/Bonn · It is the start of the holidays in North Rhine-Westphalia and experience has shown it gets crowded on the roads, railways and at airports. But at Cologne-Bonn airport and elsewhere, the opposite was more the case.
The start of the holidays in North Rhine-Westphalia has been largely problem-free on the motorways and at airports. A spokesman for Düsseldorf airport talked on Sunday afternoon of a trouble-free service at security controls. “We are completely satisfied,” he said.
On the first weekend of the holidays, around 261,000 passengers have been recorded in Düsseldorf since Friday. Last year, by contrast, there were long queues at the security controls in Düsseldorf. A spokeswoman also reported a normal service without incident or extremely long waiting times at Cologne.
There were also no major traffic jams on the state’s motorways on Saturday. This is quite unusual for the first weekend of the holidays, said a spokesman for the NRW state police control centre.
With the start of the school holidays, Deutsche Bahn started extensive construction works on its rail network in NRW. Among others, the stretch between Dortmund and Hamm has been closed since Saturday night. Tracks and overhead cables are being refurbished on the 26-kilometre section. At the same time, five stations are to be prepared for the Rhine-Ruhr-Express (RRX).
Work is also being carried out for the RRX between Aachen and Mönchengladbach. The route between Geilenkirchen and Erkelenz will not be in operation until 27 August. Nine stations will be modernised. The S6 will also not run between Essen main station and Ratingen-Ost for four weeks. Eleven points will be replaced and 3.2 kilometres of track renewed during this period.
Original text: dpa. Translation: kc
