BERLIN (AFP) — The biggest strike in the history of the German railways caused major disruptions and threatened to knock the wind out of Europe's largest economy as passenger and freight train drivers stopped work.
On main line tracks, only two-thirds of trains were running, most of them high-speed trains. In the west of the country, just half the regional trains were operating, and in the east about 15 percent, according to operator Deutsche Bahn.
The government said it feared the strike could have a dramatic economic impact and made an urgent appeal to the train drivers' GDL union and Deutsche Bahn to return to the negotiating table.
If Deutsche Bahn does not sweeten its pay offer by Monday, the union is ready to stage walkouts "until Christmas," Hans-Joachim Kernchen of GDL warned.
But the rail company said it would not be brought to its knees, amid growing public frustration with the industrial action.
"If GDL thinks it can force us into unconditional capitulation, they will not succeed," Karl-Friedrich Rausch of Deutsche Bahn said.
"If we gave in now, the damage to the economy would be even worse."
Deutsche Bahn board member Norbert Bensel said the strike, "the biggest in our history", was costing the operator 50 million euros (73 million dollars) a day.
Meanwhile the freight and logistics federation believes the cost to the sector could reach 500 million euros, its vice president Adolf Zobel told the daily Passauer Neue Presse.
Wednesday's action coincided with a nationwide train strike in neighbouring France over pension reform.
Deutsche Bahn took out full-page newspaper advertisements calling for an end to the "insanity" and a resumption of wage talks.
"Stop striking against the entire country once and for all," the company said.
"You want any minority in this country that does not even represent three percent of the staff to be able to blackmail a company and an entire country with its own separate wage agreement."
The strike over the union's demands for a 31-percent pay rise and its own salary deal apart from other Deutsche Bahn staff represented a new peak in a dispute that has lasted three months.
Freight train drivers Wednesday began the strike, scheduled to last 62 hours, and passenger train staff joined the stoppage from 0100 GMT Thursday.
Services are not expected to resume until 0100 GMT on Saturday.
Commuters in the cities of Frankfurt and Stuttgart took to their cars and faced traffic jams as only a third of the suburban trains were running. In Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, there were 20- to 60-minute delays on commuter trains.
Low-cost airlines Air Berlin and Germanwings reported brisk ticket sales, with a 15 to 30 percent increase in passengers on domestic flights.
About 40 percent of freight trains were affected across the country, with Berlin and Hamburg bearing the brunt of the work stoppages.
Some 3,070 drivers participated in Thursday's strikes, up from 550 Wednesday when only freight trains were not running, GDL said.
GDL said it believed its campaign of strikes -- the one starting Thursday was the sixth national stoppage since the dispute began -- was starting to wear down Deutsche Bahn.
But Bensel said the company was standing firm in its refusal to grant the drivers either a pay rise above the 10 percent it has offered or a separate contract from other rail workers.
The opposition pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) demanded Chancellor Angela Merkel bring Deutsche Bahn chief Hartmut Mehdorn and GDL president Manfred Schell together.
"The entire country should not be brought to a halt just because the cowboys Mehdorn and Schell want to stage a Western showdown," the deputy head of the FDP's parliamentary group, Rainer Bruederle, said.
"It is time for 'High Noon' at the chancellery."
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