Shanghai railway authorities Sunday blamed massive delays along the Beijing to Shanghai bullet train route on poor weather conditions over the weekend. The delays were the first large-scale stoppages to rail traffic during the jam-packed Spring Festival period.
A mixture of rain and fog caused the railway power supply to malfunction, the Shanghai Railway Bureau announced Sunday on its Sina microblog, refuting rumors of a bullet train catching fire.
Bullet train G15 from Beijing to Shanghai stopped at Wuxi East station for about an hour on Saturday shortly after 4:30 pm, with passengers claiming on their Weibo to have seen sparks and small explosions. The train finally pulled into Shanghai Hongqiao at 5:35 pm, one hour and 40 minutes late.
Weibo user NJ Zhou Hongwei, identified as the general manager of Renren International Travel Agency in Nanjing, made several posts saying he was stuck on train G121, that G15 was on fire while stopped alongside and that passengers were trying to get out.
