Snow chaos in Munich: Why it took so long to clear the tram of ice

It took almost a week until the Munich Transport Company (MVG) was able to resume all traffic, including trams. After the bus and tram traffic was completely stopped during the heavy snowfall on Friday evening, December 1st, the bus traffic started again on Sunday, the tram only went back into operation very slowly and line by line from Monday evening and also the U -Bahn was affected, the MVG was criticized. And there were calls for a city with over a million inhabitants like Munich to be better prepared for such heavy snowfalls.

This Friday, MVG boss Ingo Wortmann and his operations managers explained why the disruptions were so massive. And he announced a critical review. As early as next week, the MVG, mobility and construction departments want to discuss what they need to do better next time. One thing is already certain: a better clearance concept is needed.

Although the city’s winter service was deployed with more than 1,000 employees and around 600 vehicles, it could not keep up with the masses of snow. In some cases the buses got stuck in the snow and could only be recovered a day later. After it stopped snowing, some of the stops were so blocked that it was impossible to get to them.

At 10:15 p.m., the tram drivers first reported fallen trees and branches on the route, and a short time later the fire brigade closed the first routes. Because of snow on the overhead lines and the insulators, there was a risk of electrical flashovers, and the lines were also damaged by trees. The traction current had to be switched off in many places, but the switch heaters were also connected to it and as a result no longer worked.

But the biggest problem was ice in the tracks. The tram network is 173 kilometers long, 130 kilometers of which are grooved tracks. And they iced up so much that the vehicles would derail if they were driven on them. This also happened to one of three clearing Unimogs, after which it was no longer operational. The clutch failed in a second one. At short notice, on Wednesday, the historic contact wire control car used for clearing also gave up the ghost due to a broken pantograph. The MVG found a replacement in its museum. And a Unimog arrived from Stuttgart to provide support. Wortmann has already announced the procurement of further Unimogs – how many is still open.

Driving the routes with normal trams to prevent icing would not have worked with the old high-floor trams, says the MVG, especially because cars and road clearing vehicles kept pressing slush into the grooves. Even during the thaw, it was so hard that it had to be scraped out by hand with scrapers and hammer drills. 50 employees per shift were on duty around the clock, and a total of around 500 employees from all possible departments of the municipal utilities and MVG were on the move clearing and scraping.

The subway was partly unable to run because trees had fallen on the route in the above-ground section to Garching and employees could not get to work on time due to the weather. In addition, the trains parked outdoors had to be cleared of snow and ice before they could run again.