Railway Glitch: Poland, Italy Witness Delays And Cancelations

Major malfunctions in the electronic control systems of railway networks in Poland and Italy have caused significant delays and cancellations along train routes, railway authorities in both countries said Thursday.

In Poland, government cybersecurity chief Janusz Cieszynski, said a team tasked with handling emergency situations will meet Thursday to investigate the malfunction.

Poland’s PKP PLK railway company Director Miroslaw Skubiszynski, said that the sudden outage took place at 0300GMT Thursday and affected 19 out of Poland’s 33 control centers, idling train traffic on some 820 kilometers (500 miles) of railroads.

“Because the reach of the outage is almost nationwide, it is clear that some of the trains will not run at all today,” Skubiszynski told reporters.

Skubiszynski did not say what could have caused the outage.

Poland’s railway was asking travelers to put off train journeys Thursday as railway experts worked alongside the government’s cyber security team to gradually restore traffic.

Some 10 control centers were back up around midday.