After the GDL strike, the railway wants to return to the normal timetable on Saturday – but is expecting very full trains and isolated cancellations. Longer strikes are expected from January.
After the train drivers’ strike ended on Friday evening at 10 p.m., Deutsche Bahn wants to return to the regular timetable from Saturday. “We assume that we will be able to operate almost the full range of both regional and long-distance services on Saturday,” said railway spokesman Achim Stauß.
However, the trains would then be significantly fuller, especially in the morning. Stauß asked passengers to postpone their journey further if possible.
“A few canceled trains as a result of the GDL strike are possible, especially when operations start up in the morning,” the railway also announced online. “We recommend that travelers check the DB Navigator or bahn.de on the Saturday before the start of the journey.”
Massive nationwide on Friday Impairments
The strike by the train drivers’ union GDL led to massive disruptions in train traffic nationwide on Friday. During the 24-hour strike since Thursday evening, the railway had set up a replacement timetable in which, according to Stauß, around a fifth of the IC and ICE ran. However, there were clear regional differences in regional transport; in some regions no trains could run at all.
In rail freight transport, everything has been done to avoid delivery bottlenecks in German industry, said Stauß. This particularly applies to important trains that supply blast furnaces, steelworks or the chemical and automotive industries. It will take a few more days for the backlog to clear.
The railway called the strike completely unnecessary and a big challenge. The company was still struggling with the onset of winter, and there was also a timetable change on Sunday with numerous new connections.
There could be a risk of longer strikes from January
The GDL does not want to strike again over the Christmas period until January 7th. However, rail travelers could then face longer outages. GDL union leader Claus Weselsky already indicated that things would continue in January: After the strike break, “the strikes will be longer and more intense,” he told the Bavarian Radio.
The GDL has called for a strike vote on indefinite strikes. The result is scheduled to be announced on December 19th. So far there are no new negotiation dates with the railway. At the end of November, the GDL declared the talks with the state-owned company to have failed.