Bus accident in Lauffen

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Memorial stone in memory of the accident

The Lauffen bus accident was the collision of a train with a public service bus on June 20, 1959 at a level crossing in Lauffen am Neckar , in which 45 people died. It was the worst bus accident in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany to date .

Starting position

The Zabergäubahn , at that time a narrow-gauge railway from Lauffen am Neckar to Leonbronn , no longer corresponded to the self-image of the German Federal Railroad after the Second World War . Therefore, from 1954 onwards, it set up a parallel rail bus service and thinned the timetable for passenger trains with the aim of ultimately closing the line . Because of the moderate road conditions, the buses were even slower than the already not very fast narrow-gauge railway. This led to problems: On the one hand, the capacity of a bus was less than that of a train on the Zabergäubahn - the buses were therefore often overcrowded. On the day of the accident, the bus was only approved for 59 people, but carried 71 passengers . On the other hand, the transfer times to the trains of the Frankenbahn in Lauffen (Neckar) station were very poorly coordinated. The bus that was involved in the accident had a planned arrival in Lauffen at the minute the E 867 was leaving from Tübingen via Stuttgart to Würzburg in Lauffen. However, the bus drivers managed to arrive a few minutes earlier more often so that their passengers could still reach the train. An electric multiple unit , Et 4864, was traveling in the opposite direction and had left Lauffen at 17:27. The Frankenbahn was already electrified between Stuttgart and Heilbronn .

Shortly before Lauffen, the route of the rail bus crossed a limited, three-track level crossing at 39.1 km of the main line . Here the two tracks of the double-track , standard-gauge Frankenbahn ran parallel to one track of the Zabergäubahn. The level crossing was secured by a gatekeeper in route post 47. An approaching train was reported to him by telephone by the neighboring dispatchers . He then had to close the barriers at a reasonable time before the train crossed the level crossing . This was done mechanically with a hand crank and took about 12-15 seconds. The travel time of a train from Kirchheim (Neckar) station, which is closest to the south, to the level crossing was just under two minutes.

The travel times of the E 867 were on the traction with a steam locomotive of the series 38 coordinated. Due to the circulation, however, the much more powerful express train locomotives of the 01.10 series were used every now and then , which allowed the train to travel faster. On the day of the accident, the train was pulled by 01 1094. Due to numerous inconsistencies in the recordings and the clocks used by those involved, the exact sequence of events between 5:28 p.m. and 5:32 p.m. could no longer be clarified.

Course of the accident

When the E 867 drove through the Kirchheim (Neckar) station, the dispatcher there reported this to marshal 47. However, for reasons that could not be clarified later, the latter delayed lowering the barriers. When he started, the bus approached on the street side , and a car in the opposite direction. The gatekeeper paused again in the middle of his work, which the car driver saw as an invitation to cross the level crossing. On the rail side, the express train was approaching, the engine driver of which noticed from a distance of 150–180 meters that the barrier was not closed, triggering warning whistles and emergency braking . When the gatekeeper heard the warning whistle, he continued working. But the bus had tried to get through too: the boom on the side of the bus entering the level crossing hit it above the windshield on the roof. The locomotive caught the bus at a speed of around 80 km / h and dragged it over 400 meters. The overhead line was also damaged: There was a short circuit with the following power failure, so that the Et 4864 stopped at Kirchheim (Neckar) station at 17:32.

consequences

Immediate consequences of an accident

The accident claimed 45 lives. 37 people, including the bus driver, died immediately or the following day; eight others died from their injuries in the weeks that followed. Another 26 people survived seriously injured. Only one bus occupant got away with minor injuries.

Legal processing

The gatekeeper and the car driver were charged before the Heilbronn district court , who drove his vehicle over the railroad crossing shortly before the bus when the barriers were going down. The car driver was charged with endangering rail traffic and failing to provide assistance. The criminal proceedings began on November 30, 1959. During the hearing, serious deficiencies in the safety precautions in the operating system of the Deutsche Bundesbahn and in the quality of the records of operational processes were uncovered: the gatekeeper did not have an accurate clock and serious inaccuracies were repeated at Kirchheim station found in the clocks available there. Devices for the technical recording of operational processes were partly defective or known to be inaccurate. Likewise, the service regulations valid at the time did not clarify when the barriers should definitely have been closed. In the first instance , both the car driver and the gatekeeper were acquitted .

This judgment was partially overturned in 1960 by the Federal Court of Justice with regard to the barrier guard. The gatekeeper was finally in 1961 for manslaughter to a prison sentence of nine months on probation convicted.

Traffic consequences

The accident increased public pressure on the state of Baden-Württemberg and the German Federal Railroad to shift traffic back to the Zabergäubahn and make it more attractive. It was that the Zabergäu Railway from 1964 to 1965 on standard gauge with decisive for umgespurt was.

The level crossing is no longer the same as the rails, but has been replaced by an underpass of the street.

Commemoration

Horst Siebeckes record from 1959 recalled the accident as one of the major events of the year. A memorial stone was later erected at the accident site. A large commemoration ceremony was held on the 50th anniversary.

literature

  • What is in time . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1959, pp. 28-31 ( online ).
  • Sadness and dismay over the Lauffen bus accident . In: Heilbronn voice . June 22, 1959, p. 1 ( digital copy [PDF]).
  • Prosecutor confirms: barriers not properly closed . In: Heilbronn voice . June 22, 1959, p. 2 ( digital copy [PDF]).
  • Seconds of horror - reconstructed yesterday . In: Heilbronn voice . June 22, 1959, p. 3 ( digitized version [PDF]).
  • Hans-Joachim Ritzau, Jürgen Höstel: The disaster scenes of the present (=  railway accidents in Germany . Volume 2 ). Pürgen, 1983, ISBN 3-921304-50-4 , pp. 49-61 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ After Ritzau there were 27 seriously injured.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ritzau, p. 49.
  2. ↑ grief and dismay
  3. ↑ a b Lauffen omnibus disaster in court . Gmünder Tagespost of December 1, 1959, p. 3.
  4. ↑ a b c Thomas Dorn: The horror at the level crossing: memorial service for the people killed in the bus accident . In: Heilbronn voice . June 22nd, 2009 ( from Stimme.de [accessed September 4, 2010]).
  5. ↑ Heilbronn Voice of June 22, 1959, p. 3.
  6. ↑ a b Ritzau, p. 58ff.
  7. ^ Lauffen accident ; Ritzau, p. 51ff.
  8. ↑ Federal Court of Justice: Gatekeeper Merkle has to go to court again. In: Heilbronner Voice , October 8, 1960, p. 8.
  9. ↑ Ritzau, p. 61.
  10. ^ Hans-Wolfgang Scharf: The railway in Kraichgau. Railway history between the Rhine and Neckar . EK-Verlag, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2006, ISBN 3-88255-769-9 , p. 153-155 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 4 ′ 11.7 "  N , 9 ° 7 ′ 59.6"  E