Economy Massive defects
Odeg has to shut down newly delivered trains immediately
Status: 11:28 am | Reading time: 3 minutes
A railcar of the East German Railway Company (ODEG)
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa
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If the air conditioning fails, the train journey becomes torture. In Brandenburg, the Odeg railway company has therefore had to shut down an entire, freshly delivered fleet of trains. The manufacturer defends itself.
According to the manufacturer Alstom, the repair of faulty air conditioning systems in regional trains of the East German railway company Odeg will probably take several weeks. The Odeg pulled an entire train fleet with eight new regional trains out of service because the air conditioning systems only work irregularly.
From Friday, some old trains that have been reactivated will run instead. However, there are still severe restrictions on the affected regional train lines, especially in Brandenburg.
The Alstom company is working flat out to remedy the lack of air conditioning, the train manufacturer announced on Thursday. A software update for the air conditioning system is currently being tested. “The company assumes that the causal elimination of the defect, including all official approvals, will take several weeks.”
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The connections RB33 (Potsdam Hauptbahnhof – Beelitz Stadt – Jüterbog), RB37 (Berlin-Wannsee – Beelitz Stadt) and RB51 (Brandenburg Hauptbahnhof – Rathenow) are affected. Due to the lack of quality, the trains are no longer acceptable for passengers and staff, Odeg announced in Berlin on Wednesday evening. The affected trains were taken out of service on Thursday.
The air conditioning is brand new – but doesn’t work
According to the company’s plans, three old trains that have been reactivated are to roll on line RB33 (Potsdam Hauptbahnhof – Beelitz Stadt – Jüterbog) on Friday. This was announced by Odeg Managing Director Lars Gehrke.
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From Saturday to Monday, six trains are to run, then in addition to the RB33 line also on the RB51 route (Brandenburg Hauptbahnhof – Rathenow). In addition, there are sometimes replacement buses. However, there is still a complete failure on the RB37 line (Berlin-Wannsee – Beelitz Stadt).
Manufacturer Alstom said that the affected trains had a new generation of air conditioning technology installed, which did not work continuously with the required quality. This was only noticed in regular passenger service and at high summer temperatures.
The trains have been operating on the lines for eight weeks. Alstom also announced on Thursday that it would be examining interim solutions in parallel with rectifying the cause of the error, i.e. whether the air conditioning systems and thus the vehicles could be made operational again “with a temporary solution”.
Recently, a train was evacuated on the open route
After the failure of regional trains of Deutsche Bahn in the past few days, the left-wing faction in the Brandenburg state parliament criticized the emergency management and demanded clarification from the state government. On Tuesday, a train with around 350 passengers broke down on the open route in the Oberhavel district near Schönfiß, and the regional express was evacuated.
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On the Sunday before, a full regional train had stopped in the great heat near Birkenwerder (also in the Oberhavel district). Some passengers got out of their own accord and walked across the tracks. The situation was extremely tense, and there were said to be chaotic scenes.
A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn answered the question of whether there was an accumulation of broken trains: “There were two incidents with more than 23,000 Deutsche Bahn train journeys per day.”