Estonian Railways has said the cause of Thursday morning’s train traffic disruptions was a software update and ruled out sabotage.<\/p>\n
The state agency said the exact causes of the outage are being investigated.<\/p>\n
Marius Kupper, head of the Estonian Railways business continuity department, said not all systems recovered properly after a regular scheduled software update of the traffic control system.<\/p>\n
When the faults became clear, the agency immediately launched its response systems and informed cooperation partners and the public, he explained.<\/p>\n
Due to the failure, train traffic to and from Tallinn’s main station was halted for several hours.<\/p>\n
“Today, we can confirm that the possibility of sabotage has been ruled out, we have that certainty,” said Kupper.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged that a failure of this scale was unprecedented: “Deep analyses will be carried out. The goal is to ensure that such incidents cannot occur in the future.”<\/p>\n
Train services resumes<\/p>\n
The outages occurred at around 6 a.m. and the traffic control system software was restored at approximately 9:30 a.m., Elron said.<\/p>\n
“However, there may still be delays during the day, as the morning failure affected the traffic schedule,” said Monika Lilles, communications manager at AS Eesti Raudtee.<\/p>\n
“The first trains on the Paldiski\u2013Tallinn and Turba\u2013Tallinn routes are running, and the first train has arrived at Balti Jaam again,” said Kristo M\u00e4e, communications manager at Elron, earlier this morning.<\/p>\n
“Due to extensive infrastructure disruption, more than 40 trips were canceled this morning, and passengers should expect deviations from the regular timetable throughout the day,” he added.<\/p>\n
While some Elron trains were able to operate to and from \u00dclemiste or Kitsek\u00fcla stations, westbound traffic (Tallinn\u2013P\u00e4\u00e4sk\u00fcla\/Keila\/Turba\/Paldiski\/Kloogaranna) was at a complete standstill.<\/p>\n
Estonian Railways recommends checking Elron’s website<\/a> for the latest information on arriving and departing trains, as well as possible replacement buses.<\/p>\n In the event of long delays, passengers are generally entitled to ticket refunds or compensation in accordance with Elron’s procedures.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Follow ERR News on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a> and never miss an update!<\/p>\n