In 2017, Adobe announced that it would disable Flash by the end of 2020. Earlier this month, on January 12, Adobe implemented its plans and disabled Flash installations around the world. One result, according to Apple Daily, was chaos in a Chinese railway in Liaoning province.
Officials from China Railway Shenyang use software on Flash to plan the railway operations of each day. As a result of the disruption, Apple Daily said, “staff members were apparently unable to view train service charts, formulate train sequence schedules and arrange change plans.”
As a result, the railroad could not send its trains, leading to a complete shutdown of its railroads in Dalian, Liaoning Province, according to Apple Daily.
After a day of chaos, the railroad found a solution: it got a pirate version of Flash without the self-deactivating code. The railway installed it early in the morning of 13 January, which was able to resume operations.
Officials gave an exciting report of the incident in a report on the Chinese social media account QQ.
“After more than 20 hours of fighting, no one complained, and no one gave up,” they wrote (according to Google Translate). “Even though there is little hope, there is a motivation to move forward.”
The message drew a bit of ridicule on the Chinese internet, with observers pointing out that railway officials could expect this problem and develop a non-Flash shipping system months in advance. The post has been deleted, but a copy is still available at archive.org.