Grid restoration within five minutes of blackout.
The SBB blackout of 2005 brought railway traffic to a halt for hours on end. Now we are able to restore the grid within five minutes of an outage, thus setting the global benchmark for grid resilience.
On 22 June 2005, Switzerland experienced a blackout that cut off the entire SBB railway power supply, with drastic consequences for passengers and freight services. There were no trains operating for hours on end, and on the following day rail services were still restricted.
Since then, we have been investing heavily in the SBB traction network to reduce the likelihood of blackouts occurring. Furthermore, since 2022 we have been minimising the impact of blackouts by gradually reducing the time taken to restore the grid. Currently it takes around two hours. As of 2026, we can accelerate grid restoration to around five minutes following blackouts with typical causes. This innovation makes the SBB traction network a global leader.
The blackout in Spain and Portugal in April 2025 showed that outages can occur at any time. Grid operators are able to accelerate grid restoration, significantly reducing the economic impact of blackouts.
