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German -speaking SwitzerlandA single man is enough to paralyze part of the rail network
On Wednesday, a person rose to a catenary at Olten station. The electricity was cut and many trains had to be removed.
Olten station is an essential rail node.
sbb.chHis action led to an improbable chain reaction. On Wednesday, around 4:45 p.m., a 29 -year -old man decided to climb, without knowing why, on a catenary of Olten station. As soon as they saw it, the SBB immediately cut the current throughout the station. “A human life was at stake,” they justify in the “Tages-Anzeiger”. The police were called to the scene and she spoke with this man, when he was still at the top of the electric pylon. Then, the agents called on negotiation specialists, firefighters and an interpreter. And finally, around 6:15 p.m., the man dropped on the platform, injuring himself with a leg.
The catch is that during all this time, about an hour and a half, more than 90 trains had to be deleted, during rush hour. By paralyzing the Olten station, an important rail node, a whole part of the national network was stopped, with thousands of passengers blocked between Zurich, Basel and Bern.
Sitting on the ground up to 1st class
On the one hand, the trains already in circulation were stopped in the stations. On the other hand, those who were about to leave were entitled to an announcement of “undetermined delay”, due to “people near the tracks”. In the end, 90 trains had to be deleted. If some travelers have been reachable by Lucerne on one side and Bienne on the other, the number of waiting passengers was colossal.
There were so many people on the quays that, in the first trains following the interruption, people were sitting on the ground in the wagons to 1st class. Questioned by the “Tages-Anzeiger”, the CFFs explained that they could not put more trains or wagons in service, the situation being already in tense flow in terms of the use of the trains and size of the quays, at these hours.
The Federal Council had seen him coming
Barely a few days before this blockage, the Federal Council published a report specifically dealing with such risks for rail operations. In his text, he identified Olten as one of the critical rail nodes for the system, in the same way as Bern, Zurich-Oerlikon, Winterthur and Muttenz, as well as the complete lines between Geneva and Lausanne and between Olten and Zurich. In all these cases, the network does not have an alternative. The authors then asked that measures to be planned, evaluated and, if necessary, decided. This includes preventive measures in the event of technical failure of installations, computer system and rolling stock as well as natural dangers or sabotage. ”
