SBB restore train power three minutes after planned blackout

Swiss Federal Railways restored power to trains three minutes after deliberately cutting electricity in Ticino during an overnight test, SRF reported. The experiment was designed to test how quickly the rail network could be brought back into operation after a power failure.

The outage stopped trains across the region. A freight train travelling from Zurich to Cadenazzo through the Gotthard Base Tunnel lost power while moving at nearly 120 kilometres per hour. Its speed fell to below 50 km/h as it continued to roll without electricity.

At the Pollegio operations centre, which controls train traffic in Ticino, staff registered the blackout. Around 20 trains were stopped in the region, and their drivers contacted dispatchers to ask what had happened.

The test addresses the risk of a repeat of the nationwide rail power failure on June 22, 2005. About 2,000 trains stopped and 200,000 passengers were stranded. Power took three and a half hours to return, and the outage cost SBB 5 million francs. The failure was caused by an overloaded network following misjudgements.

Since then, SBB has invested in preventing another blackout and developed a system to restore the power network quickly. In Ticino, rail electricity is supplied in part by the SBB-owned Ritom hydroelectric power station.