NASA GmbH offers a glimpse into the future
From February 12 to March 2, the service planners at Nahverkehrsservice Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH are once again giving passengers a glimpse behind the curtains of the timetable. During this period, they will be presenting the first drafts of the 2026 timetable, which is due to come into force on December 14 of this year, at fahrgastforum.de/2026. For the east and south of the country in particular, the plan envisages extensive changes resulting from the expansion of the Central German S-Bahn network and Germany-wide adjustments to long-distance services.
Passengers have the opportunity to check their preferred travel routes in the local transport timetables: Will all connections be reached as required? If something does not fit, there is a feedback function. All objections are checked for feasibility. The most important changes are summarized below.
Magdeburg - Leipzig
The RE13 between Magdeburg Hbf and Leipzig Hbf will cover the route in one hour and 33 minutes in future. This is around six minutes faster than today and even around 13 minutes faster than in 2019. This is associated with changed departure times (eleven minutes earlier from Magdeburg Hbf and 17 minutes later from Leipzig Hbf), which will create new connections, especially in Magdeburg-Neustadt, Roßlau, Dessau Hbf, Bitterfeld and Leipzig Hbf, but will also make some existing transfer options impossible. In any case, the successive expansion measures completed on the line in recent years have had a positive effect, allowing trains to run at the maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour on more and more sections.
Lu. Wittenberg - Halle
The two-hourly direct connection of the S8 will be around ten minutes faster because long-distance trains will no longer have to be allowed to pass. The connection to Leipzig will be realized from Bitterfeld with a connection to the RE13 and not to the S2 as before.
Halle-Trotha - Leipzig
In future, the Halle-Trotha - Halle Hbf route will be served by the extended S5 and S5X. This will create daily direct connections to the airport and the Leipzig city tunnel every 30 minutes. The very unreliable S47 line will be discontinued.
Bernburg - Halle
In future, the RB47 will run faster in the Halle urban area without stopping at Wohnstadt Nord, Zoo, Dessauer Brücke and Steintorbrücke. This will reduce the journey time on the Salzland line between Halle Hbf and Bernburg Hbf by around four minutes. The skipped intermediate stops can still be reached by changing to the S 5/S5X in Halle-Trotha. The maximum waiting time is ten minutes.
Dessau - Bitterfeld
In future, five trains will run in each direction within two hours. Today there are four, until 2019 there were three. In future, the overall service from Dessau Hbf will consist of the hourly RE13 to Leipzig Hbf and Magdeburg Hbf, an hourly S2 to the Leipzig city tunnel and a two-hourly S8 to Halle. This expansion of services will meet the high and steadily increasing demand on this route.
Bitterfeld - Halle
In future, S-Bahn trains will also run twice an hour in each direction at weekends. Due to the dense route occupancy, an exact 30-minute interval is unfortunately not possible.
Bitterfeld - Leipzig
In future, there will also be three trains per hour and direction at weekends. The overall service consists of the hourly RE13 and the up to half-hourly S2.
Dessau - Leipzig
In future, there will be four direct connections between Dessau and Leipzig within two hours; currently there are three.
Halle - Kassel
The two-hourly RE8 Halle - Leinefelde will be extended to Kassel. Together with the RE9, this will create a daily hourly service on the entire route. This doubling of the number of journeys is necessary in order to meet the considerably increased demand on the RE9.
Coswig - Leipzig and Lu. Wittenberg - Magdeburg
Better connections between the RB51 and RE13 in Dessau Hbf will shorten the journey time between Coswig and Leipzig by approx. 18 minutes. However, the connection between the RB51 and RE13 in Roßlau in the direction of Magdeburg is extended by approx. 13 minutes.
Jessen, Annaburg and Elster
In future, the RB51 will offer direct connections to Dessau at least every two hours. On the other hand, trains will no longer be able to connect to the S2 towards Leipzig. The connections in Falkenberg will have a transfer time of approx. 30 minutes instead of the current 15 minutes.
Dessau - Halle
The two-hourly direct connection with the S8 will be retained, but with different departure times. We are currently checking the timetable to see whether the additional two-hourly transfer connection with the S2 and S8 can also be offered on an hourly basis.
Naumburg - Leipzig
The RB20 now only runs on the Eisenach - Erfurt - Naumburg section. Between Naumburg and Leipzig, the S6 will take over the services of the RB20. All the usual connections between the RB20, RB25 and S6 lines in Naumburg Hbf will be maintained with slightly different departure times. Unfortunately, the S6 cannot yet enter the Leipzig City Tunnel due to the 2026 timetable. The introduction of the continuous connection from the Leipzig City Tunnel to Bad Dürrenberg, Weißenfels and Naumburg is then planned with the start of the new transport contract from December 2026.
The RE15 will have departure times changed by around 10 minutes. Between the Saale Valley (Saalfeld - Jena) and Merseburg - Halle, there will be two-hourly connections with the RE16 at Naumburg Hbf. In addition, the RB25 runs every hour.
Lutherstadt Wittenberg - Berlin
The departure times of the RE3 have been changed by about 10 minutes. In Lutherstadt Wittenberg Hbf, the transfer time from/to the S-Bahn in the direction of Halle/Leipzig increases to up to 35 minutes.
Restrictions due to construction work
There will also be extensive restrictions due to construction work in the 2026 timetable year. This particularly affects the Halle - Sangerhausen - Kassel, Wolfsburg - Stendal - Rathenow and Stendal - Uelzen railroad lines. The RB 34 Stendal - Rathenow and RB 35 Stendal - Wolfsburg lines cannot even run all year round and will be replaced by buses. If replacement concepts already exist for the construction periods, these will be published as part of the timetable preview so that passengers can get an overview of the travel options.
The timetable preview can be viewed at fahrgastforum.de/2026.