A national rail strike in Germany started on Thursday evening at 10 p.m. Rail staff will be off work for a total of 24 hours. It is expected that thousands of trains will not run as a result, both on regional connections and long-distance routes. NS has already announced that no international trains will run between the Netherlands and Germany on Friday.
Travelers who want to travel from the Netherlands to Germany are already experiencing inconvenience from the strike on Thursday evening. For example, the last intercity trains to Berlin and the ICE International journeys will be cancelled. The night trains to Vienna and Zurich will also not depart, NS previously announced. Arriva train rides between Heerlen and the German city of Aachen will also be canceled on Thursday evening. The timetable on that route will be resumed from Saturday morning.
The GDL trade union, to which mainly train drivers are affiliated, has been unable to agree with Deutsche Bahn (DB) on employment conditions for a long time. Last month, rail employees also stopped working en masse in Germany. These actions resulted in the cancellation of countless train journeys. Also on routes between the Netherlands and Germany.
GDL demands, among other things, higher wages and shorter working hours. DB would have already moved to offer more wages, but according to GDL it completely ignored the working hours requirement. That is why action is being taken again now. DB previously called that decision “irresponsible and selfish”. According to the railway company, millions of people are being affected by the strike.