Biggest Strike in years cripples German rail sercice

German  rail travellers  ere hit on  Saturday by delay   and disruption  on one  of the autumn;s busiest travel  weekends as  the  train drivers  union began one  of its  largest strikes  in recent  years.

Lunching its  biggest strike  since 2008  the GDL union called  on its members  to walk on from 3.00 pm GMT on  Friday on freight services  and  from 2.00  pm on  Saturday on  long distance.

GDL was running amok pointing out the  strike's  impact on autumn  school  holidays.

Holidays were startting  this  weekend  in seven
of Germany's  16 regional states ,while  in four  other  regions  the vacation period  is  coming  to an end  or still running.
In addition  of the  rail  strikes tavellers   in Germany have  also  been hit  recently by repeated walkouts  by pilots  of Airlines  within  the Lufthansa  group.

This  week  ,the  pilots of Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary  Germanwings   walked   off the  job  for
12 hours  on Wednesday ,grounding  hundreds  of  flight  and  thousands  of passengers.