Bellinzona railway accident

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Bellinzona railway accident on April 23, 1924
The remains of the burnt-out Baden passenger car with gas lighting
The remains of the burnt-out Baden passenger car with gas lighting
            
approx. 1800 m to / from Castione-Arbedo
            
closed entry signal from Bellinzona-San Paolo
            
Freight tracks
            
            
            
            
Train 70 from Arth-Goldau
            
First passenger car
            
Baggage car SBB F3ü
            
Heating car
            
Train locomotive Be 4/6 12322
            
Vorspannlok Be 4/7 12502
            
Distraction to the San Paolo freight yard
            
Scene of the accident at km 149.28
            
Train 51b from Milan
            
Vorspannlok Be 4/6 12329
            
Train locomotive Be 4/6 12342
            
Heating car
            
Baden passenger car AB4ü with gas lighting
            
Italian passenger car ABz
            
            
            
            
            
            
Freight tracks
            
approx. 1200 m from / to Bellinzona

Situation map of the accident site with the train compositions
On the left the nested locomotives, on the right the burnt-out Italian passenger car ABz. Practically nothing can be seen of the two cars lined up in between, a heating car and the Baden passenger car with gas lighting.
The badly damaged F3ü baggage car did its job as a protective car. Behind it the also destroyed heating car of train 70 can be seen.
Remains of the heating car from train 51b and its train locomotive Be 4/6, leader locomotive Be 4/7 and train locomotive Be 4/6 from train 70 (from left to right).
The damaged box of the luggage car F3ü is ready to be transported, including the boiler of the heating car from train 70.

The Bellinzona railway accident was the collision of two SBB express trains on April 23, 1924 at 2.30 a.m. at the San Paolo freight station , 1.2 kilometers north of Bellinzona station . The immediate cause of the accident was the crossing of a closed signal. The accident left 15 dead and 10 seriously injured.

Starting position

Because the night express train No. 51 from Milan to Basel was very late, it ran in two parts: the Swiss part of the train ran in the regular schedule , the cars coming from Italy followed 46 minutes later. This train 51b was covered with the two Be 4/6 12342 and 12329. A heater car ran behind it, followed by two first and second class passenger cars . It was initially an older wooden car from Baden to Dortmund , which carried 1.2 cubic meters of gas in two tanks under the car floor for its gas lighting . Then an Italian steel box car followed to Basel. After that, five passenger cars and the Genoa- Basel sleeping car were lined up. Because of the Easter holidays on 20./21. April 1924 the train was very busy. The travelers were mixed internationally: In the Italian passport control there were 52 Italians, 45 German (including former German Vice-Chancellor and Minister Karl Helfferich of the DNVP ), 15 Swiss, four Americans , two Norwegians , two Czechs , two French and two British on train 51b. Initially, it was feared that the Italian envoy in Copenhagen , Count della Torre, could be among the passengers. However, he had boarded the scheduled train in Lugano .

In the opposite direction, train no. 70 ran with a train part each from Basel and Zurich , which had been combined in Arth-Goldau , to Milan. The train consisted of the Be 4/6 12322 as the train and the Be 4/7 12502 as the leader locomotive , a heating car behind the two electric locomotives , a baggage car and the passenger car in heavy steel construction . The locomotive driver of the leader locomotive was normally used in shunting and only ran the express train because of the high volume of traffic at Easter. On the descent of the Gotthard ramp, the freight train 8572 was 55 minutes late before train no.70.

the accident

The cause of the accident lies in an unfortunate chain of several failures:

  • The station master in Ambrì - Piotta decided because of the delay of the freight train 8572, the scheduled routes in Bellinzona station planned overhaul to take place in his station. He only informed the train stations between Ambri-Piotta and Biasca by telephone , not Bellinzona.
  • Although the station management of Biasca knew that the message was not passed on to the stations below Biasca, he did not notify Bellinzona station either.
  • The station management in Bellinzona allowed train no. 51b to leave without having obtained the necessary reports and consent and without having taken the necessary measures. Shortly afterwards, the information about the relocated overhaul of trains 8572 and 70 arrived in Bellinzona.
  • A switch attendant at the San Paolo freight station failed to reset the switch for the entrance to the freight station after freight train 668 had passed through at 2:06 a.m., as he was expecting freight train 8572. He had not been informed about the delay and the changed order in which the trains arrived in Bellinzona.
  • When train no. 70 approached Bellinzona, the entry signal that secured the junction to the freight station showed him stop. At the urging of the locomotive called leaders mate the engine driver on the brakes. The engine driver objected that the signal only applies to freight trains , especially since the open entry signal for Bellinzona station could be seen behind it. The engine driver therefore slowed the train very late from 70 to around 40 km / h. When he saw the switch set for diversion and the train 51b approaching it, it was too late. The guide's assistant jumped off, injuring himself slightly.

Due to the force of the collision, the four locomotives and the wagons of the two trains were pushed into one another and severely damaged. Immediately after the collision, gas ignited from the Baden car of train 51b, which was pushed into the heating car lined up in front of it. The two cars and the following Italian car caught fire .

The heating car, which was lined up behind the locomotives of train 70 traveling south, and the baggage car that followed, were able to take over their job as a protection car . The two locomotive drivers lost their lives on this train, but there were no injured passengers to complain about.

Due to the construction of an electrical signal box at Bellinzona station, the line facilities that were in operation were only provisional. As a result, the signal dependency of the northern entry signal from the entry point in the San Paolo marshalling yard was missing . However, the lack of signal dependency was not partly responsible for the collision. After the accident, SBB emphasized that the safety system was set up in such a way that accidents could only occur if several serious errors were committed at the same time. At the time of the accident, the existing signaling devices were in order.

consequences

The accident killed nine travelers, five railway workers - including the engine driver who had run over the closed signal - and a stowaway in the heating car of train 51b. Ten injured passenger and three railway workers were the city hospital admitted Bellinzona. Most of the passengers killed sat in the Baden car with gas lighting, which, according to the conductor , was occupied by 10 people. The identification of the dead was difficult because some of the corpses were charred beyond recognition.

Among the dead passengers were the former German Vice Chancellor and Reich Minister Karl Helfferich and his mother Auguste, who had traveled in the Baden carriage. After the postponement of the trial, which began on November 23, 1925, the pan-German press claimed that the accident had been a train collision prepared by Freemasonry to eliminate Helfferich. In front of the National Council , Federal Councilor Robert Haab recorded the misconduct of the driver of the leader locomotive of train 70, the station management of Ambri-Piotta and Bellinzona and the switchman from San Paolo. The result of the investigation conducted by the Public Prosecutor of the Sopraceneri District led to the same result as the administrative investigation.

The damage to the four almost new electric locomotives was serious, but less than initially feared. They were refurbished in the nearby main workshop in Bellinzona, with SLM supplying new driver's cabs for the locomotives.

After the accident in Mühlheim am Main , where a gas explosion worsened the consequences of the accident, most European railway administrations replaced gas lighting with electric light. Immediately after the Bellinzona accident, the use of cars with gas lighting was banned in Switzerland. The advancing electrification of the SBB network led to an even greater danger from such vehicles.

The regulations have been changed so that signals can only be set to run after all points belonging to a route have been set in the correct position.

The collision could have been prevented if the closed signal had automatically triggered the automatic braking of train No. 70. The accident triggered the development of the Integra Signum train control system.

literature

  • Heinz Russenberger: The end of gas lighting in passenger coaches . In: Four-axle passenger coaches of the SBB from 1912–1929 (=  Loki special ). No. 31 . Lokpress, Zurich, ISBN 978-3-9523386-2-9 , p. 70-73 .
  • Lucas Ramer: Medical observations during the Bellinzona-Arbedo railway disaster of April 23, 1924, with special consideration of the dangers of flammable gases in wagons . Diss. Med. Univ. Zurich. Publishing house K. Oberholzer 1924.
  • Ascanio Schneider, Armin Masé: Disasters on rails. Railway accidents, their causes and consequences. Zurich 1968, pp. 74–81.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Russenberger, p. 71
  2. ↑ a b c Train collision near Bellinzona. (PDF 0.9 MB) Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Volume 83 (1924), Issue 18, p. 212 , accessed on December 29, 2013 .
  3. ↑ a b Russenberger, p. 73
  4. ↑ Russenberger, pp. 70 and 72–73
  5. ^ Schneider / Masé, p. 74.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g On the railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 352 KB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. April 26, 1924, p. 2 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  7. ↑ a b c On the railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 359 KB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. April 26, 1924, p. 3 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Russenberger, pp. 70 and 72
  9. ^ Schneider / Masé, p. 75.
  10. ^ The great railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 376 KB) In: Oberrheinische Nachrichten . April 26, 1924, p. 3 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  11. ↑ a b On the railway accident in Bellinzona. (PDF; 452 KB) In: Oberrheinische Nachrichten. April 30, 1924, p. 3 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  12. ↑ a b Excerpt from the indictment. (No longer available online.) In: Anzeiger von Uster. November 25, 1925, archived from the original on November 1, 2013 ; Retrieved December 29, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmarchiv-leuzinger.ch
  13. ↑ Russenberger, p. 70
  14. ↑ a b Russenberger, p. 72
  15. ↑ a b On the railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 393 KB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. April 30, 1924, p. 2 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  16. ^ The great railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 338 KB) In: Oberrheinische Nachrichten. April 26, 1924, p. 2 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  17. ↑ On the railway accident near Bellinzona. (PDF; 384 KB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. April 30, 1924, p. 3 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  18. ^ The negotiations in the Bellinzona process postponed. (PDF; 444 KB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. November 28, 1925, p. 6 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  19. ↑ An unheard of cheek. (PDF; 354 ​​KB) In: Liechtensteiner Nachrichten. December 9, 1925, p. 6 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  20. ↑ The cause. (PDF; 384 KB) In: Oberrheinische Nachrichten. June 14, 1924, p. 2 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  21. ^ On the railway accident in Bellinzona. (PDF; 320 KB) In: Oberrheinische Nachrichten. June 27, 1924, p. 2 , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  22. ↑ Bruno Lämmli: SBB CFF FFS Be 4/6 No. 12,302 - 12,342. Operational use. Accessed December 29, 2013 (website).
  23. ↑ a b Bruno Lämmli: SBB CFF FFS Be 4/7 No. 12'501 - 12'506. Operational use. Accessed December 29, 2013 (website).

Coordinates: 46 ° 12 '7.6 "  N , 9 ° 2' 12.5"  E ; CH1903:  723.35 thousand  /  117995