Spitzke overcomes tight space challenges to renew Potsdam rail section

Things were tight in Brandenburg’s state capital — and not in terms of scheduling, but rather in terms of the limited working space available on the tracks. Nonetheless, the section between Potsdam Central Station and Potsdam Griebnitzsee returned to operation on March 19, 2025, right on schedule. Our teams had extremely little room to maneuver on the five narrow railway bridges, and the track spacing of just 3.5 meters was unusually tight. As a result, the track renewal in Potsdam proved especially demanding for our large-scale production-line machinery. When our track renewal train UM P95 and ballast cleaning machine RM 900 S were in operation, the adjacent track had to remain out of service. Our two-way excavator operators also had to adapt — the limited space meant they couldn’t rotate their machines as they normally would.

Minimal space for modern track construction equipment
On the railway bridges, our track construction crew from the Großbeeren branch manually replaced the deteriorated wooden ties with synthetic ones. The operators from our Track Construction Machinery division had to adjust each machine on the overpasses and weave teams in and out of the constrained work zones. Since no sleeper replacement was performed on the bridges, only the rails were exchanged using machinery. Adding to the complexity: in some places, there were only a few millimeters of clearance between the machines and the steel bridge structures. That required our production-line teams to stay highly alert and respond with precision at every moment.




Logistics play a hugely important role in our construction projects — and that was also true for the Potsdam site, which was led by our Großbeeren branch. The new sleepers arrived on-site punctually from our own SPITZKE FAHRWEGSYSTEME GmbH plant in Möllenhagen. Disposal of the old sleepers was coordinated shortly before the project began by logistics coordinators from Großbeeren, working together with our construction and project management teams as well as the client, DB InfraGO.

Our security subsidiary WSO handled track safety on the mainline using automatic track warning systems and fixed barriers. Due to the narrow spacing between tracks, special fixed barriers were required. This project was completed by SPITZKE SCHWEISSTECHNIK GmbH, who carried out the rail welding and grinding.

Everyone involved successfully handled all challenges of the track renewal project in Potsdam, and the line went back into operation on schedule.

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