{"id":6278,"date":"2026-06-24T00:14:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T07:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/news\/7716680\/german-trains-running-after-communication-outage-but-questions-remain\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T07:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:00:02","slug":"german-railway-says-outage-that-halted-all-trains-was-caused-by-scheduled-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/news\/6278\/german-railway-says-outage-that-halted-all-trains-was-caused-by-scheduled-work\/","title":{"rendered":"German railway says outage that halted all trains was caused by scheduled work"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Scheduled maintenance on a communications system triggered an outage on Germany’s railway that brought all trains to a halt<\/a>, stranding travelers across the country, the network operator said Wednesday as it faced criticism and questions over the embarrassing chaos.<\/p>\n

The main railway operator, federal government-owned Deutsche Bahn, apologized for the abrupt halt in services late Tuesday, when all trains in Germany ground to a halt. Service resumed gradually about two hours later, after midnight.<\/p>\n

Long lines formed at information desks as travelers tried to figure out how to reach their destination and where to spend the night.<\/p>\n

Deutsche Bahn said it was offering taxi and hotel vouchers and, where possible, putting trains in place for would-be travelers to sit in while they waited. But passengers complained of a lack of information, hotel rooms were not available everywhere, and some travelers’ journeys stretched through the night.<\/p>\n

The outage was the result of a problem with the GSM-R digital communication system used for internal communication on the railway network. <\/p>\n

The head of the operator’s DB InfraGO infrastructure division, Philipp Nagl, said the apparent cause was that \u201ca fault arose during maintenance work on a central component,\u201d which then failed. That triggered a mandatory procedure that calls for passenger trains to be held at stations and freight trains to be parked. <\/p>\n

Nagl said that passengers were able to continue their journeys, mostly \u201cwith about two hours’ delay,\u201d once the problem was fixed. Trains were running largely as normal on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will now analyze the cause meticulously” and ensure that the same problem can’t happen again, he pledged. <\/p>\n

The breakdown came after years of increasingly frequent complaints about train delays and service interruptions. <\/p>\n

Deutsche Bahn is conducting thorough though disruptive overhauls of major routes<\/a> after years of underinvestment in a bid to improve its performance, but any significant improvement is expected to take time.<\/p>\n

The European Union’s most populous country has a railway network totaling some 33,400 kilometers (20,750 miles) in length, with 5,400 train stations and used by an average 50,000 trains per day. DB InfraGO says that makes it Europe’s biggest network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat all rail traffic in Germany comes to a halt because of a technical defect is a new low in already poor operating quality,\u201d Oliver Krischer, the regional transport minister in North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, told news agency dpa. <\/p>\n

He said there need to be \u201cemergency mechanisms that prevent such a disaster in the future. People rely on reaching their destination at least somewhat punctually by rail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n \"|\"
Trains are parked outside the central train station in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, following the nationwide service disruption on the Deutsche Bahn network. (AP Photo\/Michael Probst)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n \"|\"
A passenger walks past an ICE train at Munich Central Station in Munich, Germany Wednesday, June 24, 2026, following the nationwide service disruption on the Deutsche Bahn network. (Peter Kneffel\/dpa via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n \"|\"
Passengers are on the move in the central train station in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, following the nationwide service disruption on the Deutsche Bahn network. (AP Photo\/Michael Probst)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n \"|\"
Passengers wait for a train at a platform in the central train station in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, following the nationwide service disruption on the Deutsche Bahn network. (AP Photo\/Michael Probst)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Scheduled maintenance on a communications system triggered an outage on Germany’s railway that brought all trains to a halt, stranding travelers across the country, the network operator said Wednesday as it faced criticism and questions over the embarrassing chaos. The main railway operator, federal government-owned Deutsche Bahn, apologized for the abrupt halt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":6284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"guid":"84a1b741-94a6-4fc3-a082-7a082158ba0b","source":"The Associated Press","byline":"Geir Moulson","published":"2026-06-24 00:14:46","updated":"2026-06-24 06:57:49","_infotelid":"","_prepressid":"","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1303,1304],"tags":[],"region":[],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/news\/6278\/german-railway-says-outage-that-halted-all-trains-was-caused-by-scheduled-work\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"German railway says outage that halted all trains was caused by scheduled work","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/news\/6278\/german-railway-says-outage-that-halted-all-trains-was-caused-by-scheduled-work\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/news\/6278\/german-railway-says-outage-that-halted-all-trains-was-caused-by-scheduled-work\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/inwheels-f8cdd6f80fefd17b7c427dc93895aabd8a400bf27121daba5e4b94b65b3d6c6e.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inwheels\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/inwheels-f8cdd6f80fefd17b7c427dc93895aabd8a400bf27121daba5e4b94b65b3d6c6e.jpg"},"articleSection":"International","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Associated Press"}],"creator":["The Associated Press"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iNwheels","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2026-06-24T07:14:46Z","datePublished":"2026-06-24T07:14:46Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T14:00:02Z"},"rendered":"