Overview
- Eurocity Express 197 activated its fire alarm shortly after departing Lindau-Reutin and made an unscheduled stop at Hergatz, where roughly 220 passengers were evacuated.
- Fire brigades from several nearby towns and federal police responded, tracing the odor to a toilet but detecting no residual heat or visible flames.
- The Bundespolizei later confirmed a smoldering defect in the onboard hand dryer as the source of the smoke.
- The line was closed for nearly two hours, causing a total of 212 minutes of delays across five trains and eight partial cancellations, with passengers rerouted to replacement services.
- The affected train was withdrawn from service that evening, returned to Lindau, and was subsequently handed over to Austrian and then Swiss Federal Railways.