Bad Bramstedt railway accident

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bad Bramstedt railway accident was the head-on collision of two diesel multiple units of the Altona-Kaltenkirchen-Neumünster Eisenbahn AG (AKN) on September 29, 1994 in Bad Bramstedt . Six people died, 20 were slightly injured, and another 60, some seriously.

Starting position

The Hamburg-Altona-Neumünster railway line has a single track in the affected section . The accident happened about 500 m behind the north exit of the Bad Bramstedt train station . The route has a confusing curve here. They also limit steep embankments.

Since 1957, the route has been operated in train control by radio . Train drivers must obtain permission to continue their journey via radio from the train conductor at the crossing stations .

The section was used by two trains at the time in question . One railcar of the LHB VT 2E series with the designation VT 2.31 ran from Neumünster to the south, a second, identical in construction with the designation VT 2.42 in the opposite direction. Together more than 80 passengers traveled on both trains. The train drivers were experienced and had worked for AKN for many years. In the train station in Bad Bramstedt was Train meeting provided.

the accident

The driver of the train, who was driving in the direction of Neumünster and had previously stopped at Bad Bramstedt station, left the station without obtaining the driver's license. The reason could never be clarified. Each of the two railcars was traveling at around 60 km / h at the time of the accident. The train drivers could only have seen the other vehicle at the last moment before the collision, which occurred at around 3:24 p.m. at the Husdahler Weg level crossing .

consequences

Six people died and 80 others were injured, some seriously. Both drivers were killed. On that day, the driver of the railcar coming from Neumünster had his 14-year-old daughter ride in the driver's cab - she too died in the rubble.

At 3:25 p.m., a major radio alarm was triggered for the Bad Bramstedt volunteer fire department . The volunteer fire departments of Bad Bramstedt, Kaltenkirchen and Norderstedt , a complete Löschzug the fire brigade Hamburg , the Agency for Technical Relief (THW), the German Red Cross , 29 ambulances and 20 emergency physicians , more than 300 emergency personnel were on site. Rescue helicopters were used. It was the largest rescue operation in the Segeberg district after the Second World War . The steep slope made the rescue work difficult. At around 7:00 p.m., the last trapped passenger was rescued alive, the last dead person was recovered at around 8:30 p.m.

This was the worst train accident in the AKN's 110-year history. The AKN's investment program provided for a train protection system for the route , which also provided for signaling and emergency braking when crossing a signal indicating a “stop” - too late for this accident. The prosecution concluded that human error was the cause of the accident.

Around 15 hours after the accident, the railcars, some of them on auxiliary bogies , were towed to the Bad Bramstedt station with the help of a 200-ton slewing rail crane. Unit VT 2.31 was taken out of service after the accident and used as a spare parts donor for the other unit VT 2.42 involved in this accident, which was put back into service.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Serious train accident in Bad Barmstedt. Kaltenkirchen Fire Brigade, September 29, 1994, accessed on May 4, 2019 (quoted from Brandschutz / Deutsche Feuerwehr-Zeitung 2/1995).
  2. ↑ a b BahnInfo e. V .: Vehicle list VTE.

Coordinates: 53 ° 55 ′ 26 "  N , 9 ° 53 ′ 41"  E