Deutsche Bahn pins nationwide train halt on software glitch in GSM‑R system
In the early hours of Tuesday, a failure in the GSM‑R digital railway communication system forced the complete suspension of train services across Germany, stranding thousands of passengers. Deutsche Bahn identified the root cause as a software error triggered during a scheduled replacement of a network switch, which did not generate the automatic alert needed to switch to a backup system.
The railway operator has halted further component swaps until the defect is corrected and will restrict maintenance to night hours when the system is idle. It also emphasized that the 20‑year‑old GSM‑R network will remain in use for at least ten more years while the newer FRMCS replacement is phased in.
The outage sparked political criticism and renewed calls from CDU and Green lawmakers to ban Chinese‑made components from critical infrastructure, citing security concerns. Deutsche Bahn, however, ruled out a cyber‑attack as the cause of the disruption.