Danish national railway provider DSB has announced that all of its IC4 trains will be sidelined until 26 March 2017. The move will result in schedule changes and cancellations affecting passengers throughout the country.

DSB has still not determined what caused a hydraulic pump to fall from an IC4 train onto the tracks near Hedehusene Station last week, but the same problem occurred on another of the IC4s two weeks ago.

All IC4 trains need to be inspected. Rush hour trains between Kalundborg and Copenhagen and Nykøbing and Copenhagen are cancelled, while some express trains are also running on reduced schedules.

A scandal
Failures of the IC4 trains have been a major scandal since DSB first ordered them in 2000. The delivery of the trains was continuously delayed by Italian supplier AnsaldoBreda – the final trains were 13 years late. When they finally did come, they were ridden with technical and structural problems that kept many of them from ever carrying passengers.

As a result, there are few IC4 trains on the rails between Copenhagen and Aarhus, and more and more technical issues continue to emerge.

No future
According to the transport minister, Hans Christian Schmidt, the future outlook for the IC4 trains looks bleak.

“I don’t think that the IC4 will become the backbone for future traffic,” Schmidt told DR Nyheder.

“In the DSB contract, there are funds set aside for new material, and DSB is currently working on that.”