Hamburg-Hausbruch railway accident

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In the railway accident at Hamburg-Hausbruch on July 22, 1975, eleven people died in a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train .

Starting position

On July 22, 1975, the local train N 6858 was on its way from Hamburg Central Station to Buxtehude in rush hour traffic . In the opposite direction, the Sg 52323 freight train ran from Hamburg-Waltershof to the Maschen marshalling yard , which, in order to get there, had to cross the track in the opposite direction on which the local train was traveling . The dispatcher had given priority to the freight train : The exit signal for the passenger train showed "Stop". This main signal was behind the breakpoint Harburg-Tempowerk (which no longer exists), just before the bridge of A 7 . The corresponding distant signal was already in front of the stop.

the accident

When the locomotive driver of the local train set off again at around 5:10 p.m., he forgot that the distant signal had shown "Waiting for stop". He drove off towards the Harburg-Hausbruch train station (now a depot ) and accelerated as if the warning had not been given. When he noticed his mistake shortly before the main signal, the train was already traveling about 80 km / h. The emergency braking that was initiated reduced the speed to 40 km / h, but the head-on collision with the freight train, which was traveling at around 30 km / h, could no longer be avoided. The first passenger car was pressed against the locomotive by the following five cars , so that it climbed seven meters high and bent in the front entrance area. The front part of the car was completely destroyed.

consequences

11 people died and 125 were injured. Both train drivers survived. The engine driver of the freight train jumped off in time, that of the passenger train threw himself on the floor of the driver's cab and only suffered abrasions.

The Deutsche Bundesbahn was heavily criticized because exactly four years earlier, exactly the same dangerous event had happened. At that time the two locomotives came to a stop a few meters apart. Even then, the poor visibility of the main signal (a form signal ) in front of the gray concrete bridge and the lack of a distant signal repeater behind the Harburg-Tempowerk stop were criticized. An Indusi magnet stationed there and connected to the signal repeater would have brought the train to a standstill by applying an emergency brake in front of the main signal.

The train driver of the passenger train was sentenced in the subsequent criminal proceedings for negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm to a prison term of 8 months on probation .

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Ritzau, Jürgen Höstel: The disaster scenes of the present = railway accidents in Germany Vol. 2. Pürgen 1983. ISBN 3-921304-50-4 , p. 126.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ LevHAM: Disaster , reports of 65 injured.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NN: horror and sadness .
  2. ↑ Ritzau.


Coordinates: 53 ° 28 '18.2 "  N , 9 ° 55' 16"  E