According to the information, a train driver reported the first fire at 2:40 a.m. Two more fires were reported by 3:40 a.m. All fires were extinguished by firefighters. The police state security at the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office began investigations into intentional arsons and looked for witnesses.
A letter of responsibility appeared on the left-wing extremist Internet platform Indymedia on Friday. “On the night of September 7th, we sabotaged arteries of the capitalist infrastructure in Hamburg,” it said. “Gasoline in the cable shafts on the rails” should have led to long-term failures. However, the unknown persons stated that they had limited the sabotage to freight transport routes.
According to the railway, the long-distance connections between Hamburg via Berlin and Erfurt to southern Germany were canceled on the route between Hamburg and Berlin due to “vandalism damage”. The hourly ICE connections between Hamburg and Berlin were therefore rerouted. Delays of between 30 and 60 minutes and high capacity utilization are to be expected on these routes.
In addition, the long-distance trains from Hamburg via Rostock to Stralsund and the Baltic Sea resort of Binz were canceled, the railway also announced. According to the “Bild” newspaper, regional traffic in the region was also massively affected.
Already on Thursday, a damaged overhead line had largely paralyzed train traffic in Munich for hours. The first tracks could only be opened again in the evening. According to the police, an excavator driver had demolished an overhead line during civil engineering work at an S-Bahn station. The federal police initiated an investigation against the 25-year-old.
