The reader told RTL that she and around eight other people had boarded the funicular train at around 6.45pm on Monday evening in order to travel down to Pfaffenthal station. However, once the doors had closed, the vehicle did not move and the doors no longer reopened.
Passengers attempted to press the SOS alarm button, but nothing happened. Two staff members then had to force the doors open themselves in order to free the passengers.
CFL confirmed the incident had taken place and said an error message had triggered the defect. The funicular had to be shut down at Pfaffenthal station and rebooted.
“The operating system had to be restarted and an automatic electric function test was carried out. Unfortunately this sort of error triggers a complete failure of the system, and is similar to a regular PC which has to be rebooted,” said a spokesperson.
CFL is investigating why the SOS button did not notify a technician on Monday. To date, they said they had not experienced this issue before and previous communication through the alarm button had been successful. The SOS buttons are regularly checked during maintenance work.
