Switzerland and its state train company – SBB experienced a complete black-out of the whole train network on last Wednesday evening. This black-out last about 3 hours and impacted all the trains within Switzerland, i.e. about 200’000 passengers and 1’500 trains were blocked on the Swiss network.

A complete cut off of power due to a short-circuit and a chain reaction was the reason of the incident.

This black-out generated millions of Swiss francs of damages.

I am a very regular user of the train network in Switzerland (daily) and I must say that the quality of the service and the trains themselves, as their punctuality, is *far*, I mean really far, better than the one in France. Furthermore, the SBB employees are not taking their clients hostage each two months by striking. So, all in all, a very good service for the price. There was on Wednesday no trouble in the trains, although the more than 3 hours delay for the passengers! SBB also apologized very honestly by publishing some ads in newspapers. Well done!

As usual, the proof-of-the-pudding concerning the quality of service is crystallized during the crisis events.

I am normally in the train at this time but, on last Wednesday, I decided to go home earlier beacause of the weather :-)

One other consequence of this incident is that the cell phone network was completely overloaded because of all the calls due to the delays, but without a complete black-out in thi field ;-)