The train radio disruption in the greater Frankfurt area has now been resolved, Deutsche Bahn announced on its website. “The affected long-distance and local connections are running again. However, disruptions may occur until the end of operations.” Travelers are asked to find out about their connection online at bahn.de or in the DB Navigator app before starting their journey.
All trains travelling to or from Frankfurt are affected by the massive disruptions and are or have been at a standstill – and this in turn affects rail traffic throughout central Germany and beyond. The reason: trains travelling to Frankfurt also had to stop outside the disruption area.
Trains are backed up at Cologne and Düsseldorf main stations
That is why you cannot currently get to the south of Germany from NRW and there are also restrictions at the train stations here.
At Düsseldorf Central Station, for example, long-distance trains are backing up, blocking other regional trains that could otherwise run normally. According to information from a WDR reporter, this is causing delays and restrictions in regional traffic from Düsseldorf. According to WDR information, trains are also backing up at Cologne Central Station. There are delays lasting hours.
Four hours later from Düsseldorf to Hamburg
Rail passengers react accordingly with anger and frustration. A customer wanted to go from Düsseldorf to Hamburg to visit her 90-year-old mother. She will probably arrive four hours later and criticises the fact that she has not received any information from Deutsche Bahn: “I feel like I’ve been made a fool of, there was nothing there, no information,” she says on WDR television. “Not good service, the service person […]I asked him something, he had no idea.”
Train radio essential for emergencies – standstill therefore a precautionary measure
Deutsche Bahn had previously announced that rail traffic in central Germany was massively disrupted due to a technical fault.
A train radio failure has such significant consequences because it is the central means of communication between the trains on the routes and also with the dispatchers in the signal boxes, explains WDR railway expert Niklas Hoth. “Emergency calls are also made via this. This means that if the train radio fails, communication is no longer possible in emergencies such as acute accidents,” says Hoth. The trains in the greater Frankfurt area were therefore stopped for safety reasons.
