Cologne: ICE passengers wait for hours after a branch falls!

Cologne: ICE passengers wait for hours after a branch falls!

On Whit Monday, June 10, 2025, an unexpected odyssey began for many travelers on the ICE from Dortmund to Munich. A fallen branch stopped the train near Cologne-Mülheim at around 8:30 a.m. and led to considerable complications. The locomotive was damaged, resulting in some passengers having to wait more than five hours to be evacuated radiobonn.de reported.

The evacuation was a complex challenge as the train was in a difficult to access location. With the help of special bridges and a parallel train, the way was finally cleared for the travelers. However, an embankment had to be cut free beforehand to enable rescue measures. The long waiting time caused some travelers to become dissatisfied, which ultimately led to police intervention. However, the police could not find any criminal activity and the railway publicly apologized for the inconvenience.

Chaos after bomb defusal

The incident occurred in a context in which the Cologne city administration and Deutsche Bahn were already struggling with a large number of disruptions. It was only on June 4th that one of the largest evacuation operations since the Second World War was carried out in Cologne. In total, over 20,000 people had to evacuate from a 1,000-meter radius around the site of the discovery of three unexploded bombs from the Second World War in the Deutz district, which made the Hohenzollern Bridge, the busiest railway bridge in Germany, impassable for rail traffic and significantly disrupted connections to Cologne Central Station, as the Ruhr news reported.

The bomb defusal, which had a significant impact on rail traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia, resulted in deserted streets and closed shops. Light rail services also no longer ran through the affected area during this time. These overall tense circumstances contributed to confusion and frustration among travelers.

Emergency management issues

The entire event cannot be viewed in isolation. Deutsche Bahn's emergency management and evacuation strategies are repeatedly criticized. Tagesschau.de documented in their research that travelers in the last summer months were often stuck for hours on crowded trains without functioning air conditioning. Such incidents raise questions, particularly given the emergency management regulations that require a rapid response.

Professor Markus Hecht from the Technical University of Berlin warns that the risk to life for stranded travelers is unnecessarily increased, especially if medical and technical measures are inadequate. Although Deutsche Bahn states that there are an average of around 1.56 evacuations every day, it is clear that necessary resources often cannot be mobilized quickly enough to ensure adequate care.

Overall, it is clear that the events in Cologne are not just isolated cases, but point to deeper problems in Deutsche Bahn's emergency management. Travelers have legitimate concerns when they have to endure such unsettling experiences. Time will tell whether and to what extent these aspects will be seriously addressed.