ICE drama in Cologne: 230 passengers held for hours!

ICE drama in Cologne: 230 passengers held for hours!

On Monday, June 9, 2025, around 230 passengers in ICE 527 of Deutsche Bahn between Dortmund and Munich experienced an unexpected adventure. The train, which started in Dortmund at 6:23 a.m., remained on the route in Cologne due to a massive branch that blocked the tracks. The situation escalated when the train came to a standstill at 8:30 a.m. in Cologne-Mülheim and the passengers were included on the train for several hours.

The AST, which had fallen onto the tracks in front of the Cologne Messe/Deutz stop, damaged the grinding bar that is responsible for the power supply. Due to this damage, the train was no longer able to continue independently, which led to significant delays. The passengers had to stay on the train for over five hours, while Deutsche Bahn ran for a solution.

evacuation under difficult conditions

The evacuation of the train was anything but simple and took a total of around five hours and 20 minutes. First, four articulated buses were requested to transport the passengers, but the evacuation had to be carried out gradually. Security concerns meant that the police were informed of monitoring the behavior of some passengers.

The emergency services were faced with the challenge of evacuating the passengers from 16 access parts. The last passenger left the ICE around 1:26 p.m., while the first bus arrived at 10 a.m. However, the travelers had to climb out of the train with their suitcases and go to a nearby street.

aftermath and further developments

The route on which the ICE is fixed was briefly blocked, which also had an impact on rail traffic. The broken ICE could not be towed until 3:30 p.m., and the route was finally released again. The reason for the incident, especially the sloping of the branch on the track, still has to be clarified.

In the context of events during summer, when other rail travelers were treated similarly poorly, this incident reflects major problems with the emergency management of Deutsche Bahn. Research have shown that excessive vacancies are not subject to reporting on the open route in Germany, which leads to considerable security concerns. Deutsche Bahn has explained that an emergency management is necessary for 0.004 percent of its train trips, which would result in around 1.56 evacuations per day for around 39,000 passages.

Professor Markus Hecht from the Technical University of Berlin expresses concerns about the life of life for travelers who are caught in these situations. Deutsche Bahn has also admitted that in some cases it can happen that emergency managers are not on site quickly enough to ensure the safety of passengers.

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