An inspection of 200,000 sleepers of a certain type and manufacturer in the summer revealed “irregularities in the material properties”. As a railway spokeswoman has now announced, about 137,000 of these sleepers will need to be replaced. Nearly all affected routes should be open to traffic by the end of the year. “However, in some cases, replacing the sleepers will take until next year.”
The new components to be examined are sleepers from other manufacturers that have been processed with the same type of stone. If the experts discover deviations, the corresponding sleepers are exchanged per track. “Until the affected sleepers are replaced, the trains will then run more slowly on the affected routes. The group announced that there could also be blockades. The affected thresholds have been installed nationwide, but mainly in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
The reason for the summer inspection was an accident in Garmisch-Patenkirchen at the beginning of June, in which a regional train derailed. Four people died. According to the railway, the parts checked at that time were of the same type of construction as on the part of the train that had suffered an accident. No conclusions could be drawn from the inspection findings about the cause of the accident in Upper Bavaria, it was said in the summer.
(SDA)