The long Pentecost weekend is coming to an end. Many families have used it for a short vacation to the coast or an excursion. Now it's back home with packed suitcases. It could get very crowded again in the regional trains and also on the motorways
Cologne (dpa / lnw) - At the end of the long Pentecost weekend, a strong return wave is expected this Monday in North Rhine-Westphalia. The ADAC North Rhine warns of traffic jams on the Autobahn. But the regional trains could also get very crowded again. Many people took the train on excursions and trips on Saturday and Sunday. According to Deutsche Bahn, the regional trains were used very heavily, especially to tourist destinations. A few days after the start of the 9-euro ticket campaign for nationwide journeys in local and regional transport, many additional rail passengers were expected. Pentecost is generally a busy weekend for travel. This also applies to the large airports in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The ADAC North Rhine had announced before the weekend that massive traffic disruptions were to be expected again on the NRW motorways on Monday afternoon. Many short vacationers from the most populous federal state drove their car in the direction of the German North and Baltic Sea coasts and the Netherlands - and on Monday they have to go back home. If the weather is nice, delays due to day trippers are also possible.
According to the ADAC overview, the frequent traffic jams in NRW include the A1 (Cologne - Dortmund - Osnabrück), A3 (Cologne - Oberhausen - Emmerich - Arnheim) and A4 (Greater Aachen/Cologne Ring area) as well as the A40 (Dortmund - Essen - Duisburg - Venlo) and the A46 (Düsseldorf - Wuppertal).
Also on Pentecost Sunday, a lot of people used the train. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn reported on Sunday morning that there were as many passengers on the regional trains as on Whit Saturday. As expected, the regional trains were used very heavily, especially to tourist destinations. "We recommend our passengers to get information from the information media of the local transport associations or via the DB Navigator shortly before they start their journey," he emphasized. For reasons of space, Deutsche Bahn asked travelers not to take bicycles on the trains if they were not absolutely necessary.
At the two largest NRW airports, Düsseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports, there were again longer waiting times for air travelers at the security check on Friday and Saturday, as airport spokesmen explained. Passengers in Düsseldorf had to wait up to 50 minutes, especially on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
