Germany's rail system recovers from nationwide outage
· UPIJune 24 (UPI) -- Deutsche Bahn, Germany's government-owned rail system operator, said workers switching out a component caused a nationwide outage that left people stranded for hours.
The company held trains at stations for more than 2.5 hours late Tuesday because of the issue with the digital railway station network, BBC News reported.
Deutsche Bahn apologized for the disruption and said it offered taxi and hotel vouchers to those affected, The Independent reported. In some cases, travelers waited in the stranded trains.
Many, however, complained about a lack of information during the outage. At the time of the outage, the company did not say how many trains were affected or when they might resume. Long lines formed as passengers tried to find a way to continue their trip or a place to stay.
On Wednesday, the company said trains were running "largely seamlessly," The Independent reported. It cautioned further delays were possible. Deutsche Bahn operates both regional trains and long-distance transportation, as well as S-Bahn trains that connect cities and suburbs.
The Global System for Mobile Communication for Railways, the network that was the source of the disruption, is a wireless communication system used between the train drivers and traffic control.
Philipp Nagl, the head of Deutsche Bahn's infrastructure division, said the swap that led to the issues was a scheduled one.
"We are analyzing with the highest priority how exactly this led to the fault," Nagl said, The Independent reported.
Germany's railway network is more than 20,000 miles long, with more than 5,000 train stations. About 50,000 trains each day run on the network.
Oliver Krischer, regional transport minister in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said the outage was a "new low" and that there need to be measures to prevent such disruptions.
"People relay on reaching their destination at least somewhat punctually by rail," he said in The Independent.