After the railway chaos in September last year due to a damaged overhead line at the main station, the investigations against the excavator driver responsible were discontinued. As the German Press Agency reports, the public prosecutor’s office in Munich had brought proceedings against the man on suspicion of negligent, dangerous interference with rail traffic.
The accused has now accepted the offer to stop the proceedings in return for paying a four-digit sum of money to a non-profit organization, which is why a public lawsuit is now being refrained from. “Due to the low degree of negligence, this procedure was appropriate despite the high property damage,” explained the prosecution.
The then 25-year-old excavator driver had excavated gravel near platform 2 at the Laim S-Bahn station as part of work on the second main line. He accidentally tore off the overhead line with the excavator’s boom arm. The line fell on an S-Bahn occupied by around 350 people. Nobody got hurt. The incident led to an almost complete interruption of local and long-distance traffic at Munich Central Station for hours – the S-Bahn main line was also closed. It was only the next day that all lines could be put back into operation.