Bochum Central Station has not been accessible since early Monday morning. The reason for this was a cable theft, said a spokesman for the railway. There were multiple cancellations and delays. Both long-distance and regional traffic were affected. “There’s nothing going on,” said a railway spokesman in Berlin. A replacement bus service was set up between Essen and Dortmund. Trains were diverted as far as possible, long-distance trains did not stop in Bochum.
The disruption is expected to last until Tuesday afternoon, said a railway spokeswoman in Berlin on Monday evening. It can be assumed that no trains will be able to run during rush hour on Tuesday morning.
As a railway spokesman in Düsseldorf reported, strangers in the Ehrenfeld district had stolen and cut copper cables. The damage is greater than initially assumed, and the elimination takes time.
According to the Federal Police, emergency services found several severed cables in cable ducts that had previously been pried open in a section of the route near the Bochum-Ehrenfeld stop. In addition to a few meters of copper cable, fiber optic cables, which ensure digital communication between the signal boxes, were also damaged. Witnesses were called to come forward.
“We are working flat out on the repairs,” said the railway spokeswoman in the evening. Fiber optic cables are “extremely difficult” to repair, which is why it is difficult to make a forecast.
A similar incident happened just last Tuesday. The Bochum main station could not be approached, several hundred train connections were canceled. The disturbances were due to the fact that perpetrators apparently wanted to steal copper cables near the Ehrenfeld S-Bahn station and also cut through fiber optic cables.
Federal police press release
