Despite the cancellation of the 50-hour warning strike at Deutsche Bahn (DB), cancellations and delays can be expected between Sunday and Tuesday. DB wants to provide information about schedules on Sunday, as does the ÖBB, which would have been badly affected by the strike. It is already foreseeable that overnight trips may not resume until Tuesday night due to a lack of human resources at Deutsche Bahn, ÖBB said.
“The short-term cancellation of the strike means that the measures taken as a result of the strike must be withdrawn. In close coordination with Deutsche Bahn, the ÖBB is working in the coming hours to take all organizational measures to restore regular hours to the extent of the possible. Restrictions on rail traffic cannot be ruled out at the moment,” said a statement from the Austrian Federal Railways. ÖBB wants to provide more information about specific long-distance and local trains, as well as freight connections during Sunday.
Westbahn, which links Vienna with Salzburg, Innsbruck and Munich, said on its website on Sunday morning that all trains to Innsbruck run according to schedule and that there was no track replacement service for the German curve. The Westbahn timetable between Salzburg and Munich is shortened. The timetable information is currently being updated, the company said online. From noon on Sunday, all connections made must be reserved. Rail traffic on the Vienna – Salzburg section is not affected.
Despite the cancellation of the strike, DB warned of restrictions in the coming days. “DB is facing the major challenge of having to reschedule around 50,000 train journeys and the associated shifts and deployment schedules.”
The German railway and transport union (EVG) and the DB reached an agreement before the Frankfurt am Main labor court on Saturday. EVG is also negotiating new collective agreements with around 50 competitors of Deutsche Bahn, and the call for strikes remains valid for these companies. With these railways, which mainly operate regionally across Germany, there is a risk of large-scale failures at the beginning of the week.