German railway operator stops all trains citing nationwide IT disruption

FRANKFURT/MUNICH/BERLIN - Trains across Germany were stopped late on June 23 due to a nationwide disruption of the digital railway radio system, operator Deutsche Bahn said in a statement.

“All trains are currently being held at stations,” Deutsche Bahn said, citing an outage affecting the Global System for Mobile Communications for Railways.

The GSM-R is the main communication tool between train drivers and traffic control centres.

“Our technicians are working flat out to resolve the issue,” Deutsche Bahn said, adding the cause of the disruption had been identified, without elaborating.

Deutsche Bahn said it would issue taxi and hotel vouchers to passengers and offer replacement transport where possible.

“DB apologises to passengers for the situation,” it said. REUTERS