- A technical outage crippled Deutsche Bahn’s entire network overnight, stranding thousands of passengers in their trains after the radio communications system failed.
- The outage exposed the rail network’s outdated infrastructure - Deutsche Bahn still runs on a digital communications system based on 2G technology from the early 1990s, prompting criticism from politicians and media who dubbed it “ramshackle railways.”
- Freight traffic remained severely disrupted well into Wednesday, with around half of all freight trains stuck overnight.
Germany’s state-run rail operator faced angry calls to explain how a technical problem crippled the entire network for several hours overnight, sparking delays to cargo traffic well into Wednesday.
Many thousands of passengers were left stranded in their trains after dark Tuesday by an outage of the radio communications system used by Deutsche Bahn, the latest problem to hit the country’s creaking rail network.
“Ramshackle railways,” the mass-circulation tabloid Bild fumed in a headline as it emerged that Deutsche Bahn is still using a digital communications system based on the 2G standard dating back to the early 1990s.
“The outage shows that the railway systems are out of date and prone to breaking down,” the head of the parliamentary transport committee, Tarek al-Wazir, told German media.
Around half of all freight trains remained stuck on Wednesday, the railway freight association said, pointing out that “freight trains mostly travel overnight, and therefore were particularly heavily affected”.
It will [take] days to work through this logistical backlog,” its director Neele Wesseln said, adding that “we expect a thorough explanation from Deutsche Bahn” as to how the outage came about.
Philipp Nagl, the head of DB’s infrastructure management subsidiary, said that “based on current information the cause of yesterday’s outage was the previously planned replacement of a technical component”.
“Our highest priority is now to analyse how this caused the outage,” Nagl said, adding that “we offer our deepest apologies to customers”.
Germany’s government has promised to borrow and spend billions on renewing the ageing rail network but DB has warned customers to expect less-than-perfect service for years to come while upgrades are carried out.
EVG transport union chief Martin Burkert pointed to the “dilapidated” rail network in comments to broadcaster NTV, adding that “there has been too little investment over the decades, and naturally, the technology is affected too”.
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A conductor on a train that was halted in the city of Wuerzburg late Tuesday told an AFP reporter in the carriage that he couldn’t remember a similar incident in his 20 years of service.
“It happens sometimes,” he said, “but never across all of Germany.”
