Swiss railways block German train due to 13-minute delay

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) prevented a Deutsche Bahn Intercity 187 train from entering Switzerland after it arrived at the border with a 13-minute delay. The train, traveling from Stuttgart to Zurich, was forced to stop at Schaffhausen to avoid disrupting the Swiss rail schedule.

On the Stuttgart–Zurich line, Swiss authorities follow a strict policy where German trains delayed by more than six minutes at Schaffhausen are not permitted to proceed into the country. Instead, SBB prepares a separate train to transport passengers the rest of the way to Zurich.

This practice is not an isolated incident. Similar measures have been implemented in Basel for trains arriving from Hamburg and Dortmund. Data indicates that on the Munich–Zurich route, 11 out of 100 trains failed to reach their destination in the first three months of 2024, while over 12 out of 100 were affected on the Freiburg–Basel route.