Railway accident in the Kaiser Wilhelm Tunnel (1948)
The railway accident in the Kaiser Wilhelm Tunnel on November 22, 1948 was triggered by a coal dust explosion that set the driver's cab of a steam locomotive on fire. The accident became very well known thanks to the deliberate action taken by the engine driver August Vochtel , who averted a disaster .
Starting position
The international express train D 21 ran from Paris Gare de l'Est via Luxembourg to Koblenz main station . The train was manned by around 700 passengers , including around 200 members of the military and the administration of the French zone of occupation .
The train arrived in Trier Hauptbahnhof at 6:34 p.m. A locomotive change took place here as planned and additional passenger cars were added. The planned locomotive suffered a suspension spring break that day and therefore failed. As a replacement was just a freight locomotive of the series 50 , have just returned from a mission to the station, are available. In the rush to prepare the machine for unplanned use, the engine driver seriously injured his head, so that he was out of action. So had to August Vochtel that actually a train to Apach should go, to step in as a replacement. When the alternator was switched on , all the light bulbs on the locomotive burned out . The lighting at the front of the locomotive was ensured by kerosene lamps ; in the driver's cab , the engine driver and stoker used their carbide lamps to illuminate the displays and the book timetable . The train was able to continue its journey at 19:07 with a delay of 25 minutes.
the accident
The journey over the Moselle route also led through the 4.2 km long Kaiser Wilhelm tunnel . There were special rules for driving through this long tunnel. For example, the door to the fire box on the locomotive was not allowed to be opened inside the tunnel . So when driving through Bullay, the stoker threw coal for the last time before going through the tunnel. The last station in front of the tunnel, Eller , was passed by the train at 20:29 and then at about 70 km / h into the tunnel.
About 1200 meters before the end of the tunnel, on the right-hand side of the driver's cab, the engine driver's side, numerous small jets of flames appeared, which set this part of the driver's cab on fire and immediately developed considerable heat. It was probably a coal dust explosion, triggered by the driver's carbide lamp, which ignited an explosive coal dust-air mixture that had formed in the upper right corner of the driver's cab due to the small-scale air flow . It was later no longer possible to determine with certainty whether the carbide lamp was defective. Their aluminum had melted and droplets were found all over the driver's cab.
The driver's clothes were on fire. The fire immediately made the locomotive's instruments so hot that he could no longer touch them. The stoker, whose left half of the driver's cab was initially unaffected, was therefore unable to intervene. The train was now on a slight incline, driving unabated towards the Cochem station .
Rescue operations
The engine driver evaded the side of the locomotive and first tried to reach the brake valve through the window. But that wasn't possible because of the heat. He suffered severe burns on his face and arm. Thereupon he climbed on the sheet metal of the locomotive, which was still traveling at cruising speed, behind the wind deflector, through to the front buffer beam and there carefully opened the cock of the air line with his foot. With the braking that was triggered, the train came to a stop about 300 meters in front of the station entrance, outdoors. The train driver only noticed that something was wrong when the train stopped in the open. He went to the locomotive, saw the burning cab and found the seriously injured driver. Using the nearest line telephone, he called the dispatcher in Cochem and then took the train driver to the station on foot.
consequences
None of the passengers were harmed.
A mechanical engineer who happened to be a passenger on the train also went to the locomotive. He succeeded in extinguishing the fire with the water hose that was otherwise used to wet the coals so that they would not become so dusty. Then he drove the train to Cochem station. The Cochem railway depot provided another class 50 locomotive with which the train could continue to Koblenz, where it arrived 73 minutes late.
August Vochtel was retired after the accident due to his severe permanent injuries . Both the French military governor Marie-Pierre Kœnig and Federal President Theodor Heuss honored him for his heroic deed. It was also used several times in short stories and school books.
A comparable accident had never occurred (and never occurred again); there were only incidents in which locomotive personnel suffered carbon monoxide poisoning . As a result of the accident, a series of driving tests were carried out in order to simulate the initial situation of the accident. However, it was not possible to restore the concentration of the corresponding coal dust-air mixture. The operating regulations for the Kaiser Wilhelm Tunnel were adjusted, the use of prestressing locomotives now required a special permit. An additional locomotive should always run as a push locomotive to prevent the exhaust gases from the locomotive from being blown directly into the driver's cab of the leader locomotive. Carbide and kerosene lamps were now banned in the tunnel, the coal dust had to be swept thoroughly from the driver's cabs before driving through the tunnel and the entire surface of the coal in the tender had to be moistened.
literature
- Joachim Braun: A fateful tunnel journey. In: Lokmagazin No. 195 (1995), pp. 509-513 [evaluation of the accident file].
- Alfons Friderichs: Personalities of the Cochem-Zell district . Trier 2004, ISBN 3-89890-084-3
- Alwin Mortzfeld and Kurt Siebrandt: Train driver Vochtel fights against death . In: It's about minutes. From selfless acts of salvation . Publishing house Ensslin & Laiblin. Berlin no year around 1950.
- Railway Journal, February 2007.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Braun, p. 510.
- ↑ Braun, p. 512.
- ↑ Braun, p. 510.
- ↑ Braun, p. 512.
- ↑ Braun, p. 510f.
- ↑ Braun, p. 512.
- ↑ Braun, p. 511.
- ↑ The literary treatment of the accident by Mortzfeld and Siebrandt assumes that the train came to a stop in the tunnel. Due to the distance between the mouth of the tunnel and the train station, at least the locomotive must have stopped outside the tunnel.
- ↑ Braun, p. 511.
- ↑ Braun, p. 511.
- ↑ Braun, p. 512.
- ↑ Braun, p. 513.
Coordinates: 50 ° 7 '28.4 " N , 7 ° 9' 2.8" E