A suspicious fire broke out late Friday night on railway tracks in Wuppertal, western Germany, in what investigators are treating as a deliberate attack on transport infrastructure.
According to Deutsche Bahn (DB), unidentified individuals appear to have cut cables and set them on fire using an accelerant.
The blaze damaged three railway switches, although officials confirmed the switches themselves were not directly affected. Train services experienced only minor disruption.
Local police said the fire was large enough to be seen by nearby residents, one of whom alerted authorities shortly before midnight.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames quickly. A DB subsidiary, InfraGO, confirmed that the cables had been “damaged and ignited by third parties.”
Federal police dispatched state security investigators after ruling out technical faults, treating the case as suspected arson targeting critical infrastructure.
A police helicopter was deployed to search for suspects overnight, but no arrests have been reported. Evidence has been collected for forensic analysis, though authorities have not yet suggested a motive.
The Wuppertal incident comes less than a month after incendiary devices were discovered on a railway line between Düsseldorf and Duisburg, which destroyed cables controlling switches and signals and caused major disruption.
Investigators are now working to establish whether the two cases are linked, amid mounting concerns about the security of Germany’s rail network during a time of heightened threats to public infrastructure.