A breakdown in the railway radio communication system brought trains across Germany to a nationwide standstill on Tuesday evening. The outage froze all operations for the national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, leaving trains held back and travelers stranded in their seats or waiting in long lines at station information desks.
The railway network operator reported that the communication system outage was caused by workers swapping out a replacement component. Technicians worked around the clock to resolve the technical meltdown.
Shortly before 1 a.m., nearly two and a half hours after the outage was first reported, Deutsche Bahn announced that the problem had been resolved. Services began resuming step by step following the nearly three-hour outage.
While train services have resumed, regional and suburban rail operators warned that continued delays remained possible into Wednesday morning.