In the next ten days, no trains left Cologne Central Station – except the S-Bahn. Starting Friday evening, the railway will close all lines at the station to long-distance and regional traffic.
The new signal box was actually supposed to be operational during the closure. To do this, several old signal boxes had to be disconnected so that train traffic could be controlled from modern electronic signal boxes. The railway has been working for years to upgrade its aging signal box Cologne to update.
However, due to software problems for the new signal box, these plans were abandoned at short notice. According to the railway, an error was discovered in the software, meaning safe and reliable operation of the trains cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, the new signal box will not be connected for the time being, but the closure will remain in effect.
A re-lockdown is likely in spring 2026
The railways still want to take advantage of the ten-day closure, for example for important work on switches or overhead lines. For the actual operation of the signal box, Cologne Central Station will probably be closed again in a few months.
According to the railroad, an appointment in spring 2026 is possible. However, during this period the Köln-Wuppertal-Hagen route will also be closed for five months from February 2026, which will likely have a significant impact on long-distance and regional traffic in Cologne. The railroad is still checking how much the two closures overlap.
The main station is expected to remain open at the height of the street carnival around Rose Monday. It is also unclear how long the second closure will last and whether another ten days without long-distance and regional trains will be needed or whether work can be completed more quickly.
The new signal box allows for more flexible interference handling
In the signal box, the dispatcher ensures that the train travels safely from A to B – for example by setting the switch and switching the signal to green as soon as a section of track is clear. Each signal box is responsible for a specific area. The new Cologne signal box will in future control all railway routes from Cologne to Düsseldorf, Aachen and Bonn.
Until now, dispatchers controlled switches and signals using levers and buttons. In the future, this will be done digitally: the dispatcher will then control the switches via the screen and primarily operate the computer mouse. According to Deutsche Bahn, this is faster and requires less staff – an important factor because in the past signal boxes have remained unmanned due to a lack of staff, stopping train traffic in the affected areas.
With the new electronic signal boxes, railway lines can also react more flexibly to disturbances. If a problem occurs, not the entire region will be paralyzed in the future. This should ensure greater reliability and timeliness. In total, the railway has built three new electronic signal boxes in the Cologne area alone in recent years.
