With overruns of €2.3 billion, the German federal government says it sees no reason why it should pay the extra costs of a major railway project in Stuttgart. Officials are accusing Deutsche Bahn of providing inaccurate information.

With the recent announcement the project would come in at several billion euros over its original price tag, Berlin has been slowly turning its back on the project. A growing number of people in the federal government are questioning whether Stuttgart 21 will now ever actually be completed.

The Stuttgart 21 project, if completed, would transform a terminus into a through station, create a high-speed rail line between the Baden-Württemburg capital city and Ulm and open up space once cut off by railway lines to create an entire new neighbourhood once those tracks are placed underground. Although the project was approved in a public referendum in 2011, it has remained deeply controversial and a magnet for mass public protests.

Officially, Deutsche Bahn says the project will be completed by 2020, but Stuttgart 21 has already been plagued with delays, and Transportation Ministry officials in Berlin are offering an internal forecast that it will not be finished until 2024.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/government-distances-self-from-stuttgart-21-rail-project-a-881559.html