Kassel/Fuldatal (dpa/lhe) - On a railway line near Kassel, unknown persons placed building material on the tracks and thus endangered trains. An ICE ran over wooden boards and a concrete slab on Saturday evening, but did not derail, as the federal police in Kassel announced on Monday. There were no injuries. On the route, the trains are traveling at speeds of 140 to 180 kilometers per hour, it said. Patrol officers found a second concrete slab on a neighboring track. According to the police, the wooden boards and concrete slabs came from a parallel cable duct.
With wooden slabs, a train is usually not to be expected to derail, but with concrete slabs it could "go in the other direction," said a spokesman for the federal police on Monday. The plates were said to be about five centimeters thick.
According to current knowledge, the incident can be classified as vandalism. There were no suspects as of Monday. The railway line was temporarily closed.
