German railway back on track after nationwide communications outage

Railway services across Germany returned to normal on Wednesday morning following a nationwide failure of the operator's digital communications system that brought rail traffic to a complete standstill for about two hours overnight, leaving countless passengers stranded.

Operator Deutsche Bahn said all lines were fully operational again and all regional and long-distance services were largely back on schedule, except for some isolated delays.

The disruption was caused by a fault in GSM-R, short for Global System for Mobile Communications - Railway, the digital radio system used by rail staff across Deutsche Bahn's network.

Deutsche Bahn said it believes the failure was caused by the planned replacement of a technical component of the GSM-R system.

"We are now conducting an analysis of exactly how this led to the disruption as a matter of the highest priority," said Philipp Nagl, head of DB InfraGo, Deutsche Bahn's infrastructure operator. He did not give further details, including on the nature of the technical component.

According to broadcaster rbb, security authorities have ruled out sabotage and assume a faulty update was behind the failure.

Broadcaster SWR also linked the outage to a software update, citing railway employees.

Passengers stranded overnight

Trains suddenly stopped running late on Tuesday, leaving scores of passengers stranded across the country.

Long queues formed at information desks in stations. Deutsche Bahn said it was providing affected passengers with taxi and hotel vouchers.

The first trains began running again at around 12:30 am Wednesday (2230 GMT Tuesday), before services gradually resumed through the early morning.

"We were able to stabilize the situation with an emergency system. We now need to determine the cause," Deutsche Bahn chief executive Evelyn Palla told the Bild tabloid.

IT experts had worked continuously to resolve the outage, the company said, thanking passengers for their patience.

'New low': Anger over latest chaos

Deutsche Bahn, which has long been struggling with unreliable services and crumbling infrastructure, faced widespread criticism over the failure on Wednesday.

Oliver Krischer, transport minister of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said the latest incident had left him "speechless."

"The fact that a technical fault has brought all rail traffic in Germany to a standstill marks a new low in an already poor standard of service," he told dpa, calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident.

Freight traffic had also been brought to a halt. The Association of Private Freight Railways called for a detailed review of the two-hour outage.

The cause of the disruption late on Tuesday should not be determined solely on the basis of information provided by DB InfraGo, the association's managing director Peter Westenberger told dpa.

Better monitoring and management of railway infrastructure operations was needed, he said.

According to DB InfraGo, the GSM-R system has replaced almost all analogue radio systems used by Deutsche Bahn and offers advantages including secure operational communication, special group calls and targeted contact with railway dispatchers.