line with guests of honour—among others, Chancellor Angela Merkel and DB chief Rüdiger Grube—part of this involved running the two trains side by side in same direction. Initially the trains were formed of specially converted ICE T set 1129 (named "Leipzig") and set 1173 (named "Halle (Saale)") from Halle to Erfurt. This was followed by a run to Leipzig, during which ICE set 1504 ("Erfurt") ran partly in parallel. The line was put into operation for public passenger and freight transport at the timetable change on 13 December 2015. The first scheduled train was ICE set 1654 running from Leipzig to Wiesbaden. The introduction of the new ICE line 15, the rerouting of ICE line 28 and a number of timetable adjustments between Halle, Berlin and Hamburg were necessary. Certification problems A new form of slab track, which can be used on long bridges, has been installed on the line. According to DB information, it is the only such system on the market. The Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt, EBA) declined an application for the approval of the use of the slab track in May 2015. The construction was considered weak because of a compensating layer of unreinforced concrete, although this was an accepted engineering technique and was imported from building regulations. The reinforcement was mandatory in the view of the EBA for handling stresses. Evidence needed to be provided that dynamic loads did not create excessive tensile forces on the blinding concrete. The Authority was concerned that the concrete would thus show no cracks when rehabilitation was needed. Six bridges along the entire line are affected by this problem. On 25 June 2015, the EBA and DB agreed on a package of measures at a meeting at the Federal Ministry of Transport. An examination would be carried out under Common Safety Methods (CSM) to determine whether a side concrete layer on both sides of the structure would create additional lateral strength by the end of July 2015. Thus, the lateral resistance would be increased. On bridges, with a length of over ten metres, 1500 one metre-long plates were attached. In combination with supplementary load tests, an ongoing special monitoring of proof of equivalent safety should be conducted as the basis for project-specific approval. The relevant opinion was given on 31 August 2015 with positive results. Now bimonthly test runs are carried out to check the track situation, the related tolerances