The Deutsche Bahn has been attacked again by saboteurs. Unknown persons broke into a switch house in the Essen district of Dellwig last Sunday and cut cables in switch boxes, said a railway spokeswoman, thereby confirming a report by "Spiegel". Only freight trains run on the route at the scene of the crime. Passenger traffic was not affected. The state security at the State Criminal Police Office has started the investigation, the spokeswoman said.

After the damage was discovered, the route was closed for a few hours, according to Bahn. It was later put back into operation. Trains were diverted at that time. "This had almost no impact on traffic," says the company. "Our systems have taken effect."

In October, strangers in Herne and Berlin cut the fiber optic cable of the internal railway mobile network, which is used, among other things, by engine drivers and control centers to communicate with each other. As a result, rail traffic in northern Germany came to a complete standstill for several hours. Throughout the day, there were also subsequent delays and train cancellations in other regions.

The railways then announced more security checks along the routes, also in cooperation with the federal police. In the case of objects in need of protection, Deutsche Bahn also wants to check the security concepts in cooperation with the authorities. In addition, the group wants to arm itself against system failures with additional network capacities, among other things.