After another possibly manipulated socket was discovered on a train bound for Munich on Friday morning, the Federal Police warns train passengers to be careful: they should take a close look at the power sockets on trains before plugging in the power plug or charging cable. For example, there could be a metal pin, wires or the like in the socket poles, which can lead to an electric shock on contact.
In the past three weeks, several cases of defective and possibly deliberately sabotaged sockets have been discovered in Germany and Bavaria, two passengers suffered electric shocks. Various routes and various operating companies were affected, the state-owned company Bahn as well as private companies.
The most recent case was registered on Friday in a regional train from Augsburg to Munich. A federal police officer who happened to be traveling with her discovered a metal pin in the pole of a socket and informed the train staff, who in turn warned the passengers against using it in an announcement. After arriving in Munich, the train was immediately examined, but no other suspicious sockets were discovered. Forensic technicians secured clues and are still evaluating video camera recordings.
As a spokesman for the federal police said, it cannot be completely ruled out that the damage known to date was also caused by the use of cheap plugs, parts of which simply broke off and the rest got stuck. However, because the number of cases also indicates that there is intention behind it, investigations into suspicion of attempted bodily harm have been initiated.
In the first known case, several sockets were manipulated on a train from Stuttgart to Karlsruhe at the beginning of August, a woman was injured by an electric shock and taken to a hospital. As the spokesman for the federal police said, two other cases had already been identified in Bavaria before the current case, in one of which Augsburg was also the starting point of the journey.