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Emergency Stop

Train Halts to Replace Beer Tap

A train in Germany carrying soccer fans made a 25-minute unscheduled stop Saturday -- to replace a broken beer keg tap.

Imminent rail strikes may be threatening to bring Germany to a standstill later this week, but one German train made an unscheduled halt for an entirely different reason -- to replace a broken beer keg tap.

A group of German soccer fans was traveling Saturday in the "Samba Wagon" of a special train ferrying them from Leverkusen to Hamburg to see their hometown heroes face FC St. Pauli when the wagon's beer tap broke.

Faced with the alarming prospect of a beer-less journey, the train made an unscheduled halt in Wuppertal station -- at 9:20 in the morning. Police officers kept an eye on the fans as they mingled with travelers on the train platform and chanted football songs. Meanwhile, a taxi rushed to fetch a replacement for the crucial instrument. Twenty-five minutes later, the new tap had arrived and the train could continue on its way.

"Deutsche Bahn reacted in a swift and un-bureaucratic way so as not to endanger the good mood of the soccer-mad travelers," German police said in a statement Monday, adding there had been a "good atmosphere" among the fans as they waited in the station.

The way home was presumably less cheery for the Bayer Leverkusen fans -- their team lost 0-1 in the German Football Association cup match.

jtw/ap