Berlin, Oct. 8 / BNA / The Associated Press (AP) reported that a train communication system in Germany was sabotaged Saturday, forcing passenger and freight trains to stop for nearly three hours across the northwest of the country. .
There are no long-distance or regional trains operating in the states of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bremen, operator Deutsche Bahn said early Saturday. This also affected trains between Berlin and Cologne, neither of which was directly affected by the failure of the system, and between Berlin and Amsterdam, while trains from Denmark did not cross the border into Germany.
Sabotage hit an essential means of regional and intercity transportation in Germany as well as disrupting supply lines to industries that use freight trains.
After nearly three hours of suspension, Deutsche Bahn said the problem – “a failure of the digital train radio system” – had been resolved but some disruptions could still be expected. She later said the outage was caused by vandalism.
Transport Minister Volker Wessing said cables deemed “essential to safely handle rail traffic” were intentionally cut at two separate sites. He said the German Federal Police was investigating the incident.
AOQ