“Sabotage” targeting communications infrastructure was responsible for the significant disruption to Germany’s rail network on Saturday, operator Deutsche Bahn said, while the government said no motive had yet been identified.
“Cable sabotage” was the cause of the breakdown, which led to a three-hour interruption of train services throughout northern Germany, a company spokesman told the AFP news agency.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing said that important cables had been “deliberately and intentionally severed” in two places.
“It is clear that it was a targeted and premeditated action,” he added. The motive is “not yet known”.
He described the incident as “clearly premeditated”.
Specifically, the GSM-R, a radio network for communication on the train, was damaged, reported the mirror, citing security circles.
Any damage to the cable requires “secure knowledge” of the rail system, the daily Bild newspaper said, adding that the federal police were conducting investigations.
Due to “a malfunction in the digital radio system of the trains”, traffic was completely interrupted for about three hours before it was restored, according to Deutsche Bahn.
Connections between Berlin and regions in the west and north of the country were affected, including Schleswig-Holstein, the cities of Hamburg and Bremen as well as Lower Saxony and parts of North Rhine-Westphalia.
– Protection of critical infrastructures –
The Berlin-Amsterdam route was also suspended and thousands of travelers were stuck at stations in the affected regions.
Deutsche Bahn warned that failures and delays can also be expected on Saturday, despite the restoration of rail operations.
The attack comes just over two weeks after sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany.
The federal government has also increased the protection of its critical infrastructure.
Deutsche Bahn is regularly criticized for delays in rail traffic.
In early September, the company announced it would undertake massive improvement work, including the replacement of 137,000 concrete sleepers.
An independent appraisal pointed to “production errors” in the sleepers.
The derailment of a train in the Bavarian Alps in early June, which killed five and injured more than 40, highlighted the poor state of Germany’s rail infrastructure, a result of years of underinvestment.
In recent months, the government has encouraged car-loving Germans to take the train with cheap ticket offers.
