Berlin commuters hit anew by train service cuts

Sep 8, 2009, 8:36 GMT

Berlin - Thousands of people in Berlin arrived late for work on Tuesday after commuter trains were suddenly withdrawn from service for emergency repairs.

Rail authorities announced on Monday evening they were pulling three-quarter of the German capital's S-Bahn commuter trains from service for checks on their brakes.

Services were halted completely on some city routes, while others were serviced infrequently or with trains with a reduced number of carriages. Platforms at some stations were closed and escalators turned off.

'Operations are very irregular everywhere,' said a spokesman for the S-Bahn, a subsidiary of the national rail carrier Deutsche Bahn.

The city's underground rail network was not affected by the action, which was ordered after brake defects were found during routine maintenance checks.

It was the second such action in just over two months. In early July trains were withdrawn from service after it was found that maintenance procedures had been insufficiently followed.

The entire board of the Berlin S-Bahn company was sacked when the scale of mismanagement at the company became clear. The company had reportedly not followed safety instructions from the Federal Railway Authority (EBA).

Increased bus services and additional regional trains attempted to make up the transport shortfall. The underground system, or U-Bahn, was also taking extra passengers.

Berlin's current S-Bahn system, set up in 1995, was originally a symbol of the re-united city as it connected areas formerly separated by the Berlin Wall.