Word: bahn
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...first time in its 85-year history, Berlin's S-Bahn system has slashed services after most of its trains were pulled off the tracks for safety checks. Now only one-third of the 600 S-Bahn trains are running, and 19 stations, including the one at Berlin's Schönefeld airport, are affected by the engineering works. Since July 20, more than a million commuters have been facing long lines and severe delays. Many have had to come up with alternative travel plans and take underground trains, trams, buses, even bicycles - anything to get them from...
...Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national rail operator and the S-Bahn's parent company, says it was forced to take the commuter trains out of service after an accident on May 1 in which a carriage of a train derailed after a wheel broke. No one was injured, but the incident spooked authorities. The federal railway agency launched an investigation and issued several urgent safety recommendations. "According to new safety regulations imposed after the accident on May 1, we have to double-check and replace the wheels of our entire S-Bahn fleet more often than we used...
...total of 4,000 wheels will have to be replaced, and all the trains' axles will have to be checked. Meanwhile, union leaders are furious, saying that Deutsche Bahn should have made these fixes years ago. They accuse the rail operator of cutting corners to save money, putting the safety of its passengers and employees at risk. "We warned a long time ago, as far back as 2003, that there were faults on the wheels of Berlin's S-Bahn trains," says Oliver Kaufhold, a spokesman for the German rail union Transnet. "When a third of the city's engineering...
...some of the tens of thousands of visitors the city expects over the summer, keeping them and their holiday cash away. And the p.r. nightmare promises to get only worse when Berlin hosts the World Athletics Championships from Aug. 15 to Aug. 23. If everything goes to plan, S-Bahn will have some more trains up and running by Aug. 9 - but services won't return to normal until December. Many Berliners, including the city's mayor, are on vacation and have managed to avoid the chaos. But for those stuck in the capital, it's going...
...outmaneuver rivals, some of Europe's main rail operators are already forming partnerships. SNCF, for example, runs a high-speed Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam-Cologne service called Thalys along with Belgian rail operator Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belge (SNCB) and Germany's Deutsche Bahn (DB). DB also uses the French company's track to operate its high-speed Intercity-Express (ICE) trains between eastern France and Paris. But, despite their cooperation on some routes, DB and SNCF are locking horns over Eurostar. The French have a majority stake in Eurostar, which also includes the Belgians...