The all-clear comes after midnight: After hours of chaos, trains are running again on all S-Bahn lines in Munich. Deutsche Bahn had previously cautiously pointed out that the situation at Munich Central Station was also returning to normal: “Long-distance and regional trains can approach the main station again,” the company announced late on Thursday evening.
However, traffic is unlikely to return to “normal” for all commuters and travelers. For the S-Bahn, you have to expect delays and short-term train cancellations in the entire network.
The advice also applies to long-distance and regional transport, which should largely be running according to plan on Friday morning, but isolated cancellations and delays are still possible and are always possible with the train anyway. Already at night, the company points out for the connection between Munich and Nuremberg that there may not be enough trains and that you should check shortly before you start the journey whether anything is running at all.
For all commuters and travelers who want to try again on Friday morning: You can find out how the Munich S-Bahn is currently running at www.s-bahn-muenchen.de/fahr/betriebslage and whether the trains are currently running in Bavaria can be found here: regional.bahn.de/regionen/bayern/fahrplan/aktuelle_betriebslage
What’s happened? Apparently, an excavator during construction work on the second S-Bahn trunk line in the Munich-Laim area had damaged a complete cross structure that spans the overhead lines across all tracks on the line. As a result, the important route between the main station and Munich-Pasing was closed from Thursday afternoon. Long-distance and regional traffic as well as traffic on the S-Bahn main line were completely stopped with a few exceptions. It was not possible to reach Munich Central Station for a long time. The consequence: chaos in and around the main train station, long queues for trams and taxis, annoyed and desperate travelers.
And the train? “We expressly apologize for the inconvenience caused to your passengers,” it said on Thursday. After all, all passengers who had to postpone their planned trip due to damage to the overhead line can use their ticket at a later date. “The train connection has been lifted,” the railway informed. The ticket is also valid with a changed route until the journey to the destination. Seat reservations could be canceled free of charge. Further information on possible compensation claims is available online at www.bahn.de/service/information-buchung/fahrgastrechte.
If you want to find something positive: the repair work on the overhead line progressed faster than planned, it could have been even worse. And the mishap only happened anyway because something like this shouldn’t happen to this extent again in the future. The second main route is intended to relieve the existing connection and offer an alternative option in the event of a disruption. Whether that would have helped in this specific case is again questionable. The damage to the overhead line occurred at Pasing train station; the new route only begins in Laim and is supposed to lead to Leuchtenbergring.