A technical malfunction of the train radio leads to chaos on the train just at the start of the weekend. In large parts of northern Germany, all long-distance and, in some cases, regional traffic have come to a standstill. Travelers will continue to feel the effects for some time after the disruption has been resolved.
According to the company, the severe disruption to the railway in northern Germany has been resolved. However, impairments are still possible during the day, said a spokesman for the railway in Berlin. At around 10:00 a.m., the first local trains left Hamburg Central Station again. According to a dpa reporter, more and more late local trains are being announced for departure.
The railway announced on Twitter that there would still be impairments and stop and train cancellations until around 11 a.m. Rail traffic in large parts of northern Germany had been paralyzed since the morning due to a disruption in the digital train radio system.
Countless travelers were stranded at the train stations as a result. Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein were affected, as Deutsche Bahn wrote on Twitter. The company recommended travelers traveling between Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia and between Berlin and Baden-Württemberg or Switzerland to use connections via Erfurt and Frankfurt/Main. In general, Deutsche Bahn asked its travelers to inform themselves shortly before planned trips via www.bahn.de/reiseauskunft, via the "DB Navigator" app or by calling 030/2970. The Bahn website said: "As soon as we have new information, we will keep you updated here."
According to Deutsche Bahn, the reason for the chaos was a technical fault in the train radio system GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications - Rail). What exactly led to this remained open for the time being. GSM-R is used "for communication between the control centers that control train traffic and the trains and is therefore an indispensable component for smooth train traffic," said a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn.
