In October, strangers cut fiber optic cables in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, and in Berlin. Now the perpetrators break into a switching house and cut the cables there. The state security has already started the investigation.
The Deutsche Bahn has been attacked again by saboteurs. Previously unknown persons broke into a switch house in the Dellwig district of Essen during the day last Sunday and cut cables in switch boxes, said a railway spokeswoman. Only freight trains run on the route at the scene of the crime. Passenger traffic was not affected. The state security at the State Criminal Police Office has started the investigation, said the railway spokeswoman.
After the damage was discovered, the route was closed for a few hours, according to Bahn. It was later put back into operation. Trains were diverted at that time. “It had almost no impact on traffic,” said the railway spokeswoman. “Our systems have taken effect.” In October, strangers in Herne and Berlin cut the fiber optic cable of the internal railway mobile network, which is used, among other things, by engine drivers and control centers to communicate with each other. As a result, rail traffic in northern Germany came to a complete standstill for several hours.
Throughout the day, there were also subsequent delays and train cancellations in other regions. The railways then announced more security checks along the routes, also in cooperation with the federal police. In the case of objects in need of protection, Deutsche Bahn also wants to check the security concepts in cooperation with the authorities. In addition, the group wants to arm itself against system failures with additional network capacities, among other things.
