Railway accident near Hugstetten
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The railway accident at Hugstetten on the Breisacher Bahn happened on September 3, 1882, when a train derailed there . With 69 fatalities, this was the worst railway accident in the first 100 years of German railway history . Only the Genthin railway accident on December 21, 1939 claimed even more victims.
Starting position
September 3rd, the Sunday after “ Sedan Day ”, a public holiday in the German Empire , was the reason for a late summer excursion with a special train from Colmar to Freiburg for over 1200 people . At around 8 p.m., the train and its passengers were due to return from Freiburg station to Colmar. In the evening a storm with heavy rain fell over Freiburg, which is why the departure was delayed by a few minutes.
Railway infrastructure
The line was built on September 14, 1871 as a private line to Breisach , nationalized in 1878 and extended across the Rhine to Colmar in the same year . It showed a gradient of up to 12 ‰ from Freiburg to the Rhine. The superstructure had not been changed or completely renovated since commissioning, so that very light rails were still laid here, which also coincided with "floating joints". This means that the ends of the rails lay against each other between two wooden sleepers . In 1881 alone 31 broken rails and link plates had broken on the line . The sleepers were not impregnated . They were not in a gravel bed , but in a gravel bed. The rehabilitation of the line was already planned, as the track had to be straightened repeatedly after operational shifts. Half a year before the accident , a locomotive derailed while driving uphill due to the condition of the track .
The track was with marshals backed m at a distance of 1000 which among themselves with Läutewerken could communicate.
The storm had washed away or softened the bedding of the tracks of the railway line in the Mooswald area .
vehicles
The train was pulled by the KNIEBIS type X c locomotive, a long boiler locomotive with three driven axles (" C coupling"). The construction came from the workshop of Robert Stephenson . Without changing the center distances, he built locomotives with a longer boiler, a so-called "long boiler". The boiler, which now protrudes far above the outer axles, could cause the locomotive to oscillate at higher speeds, which in extreme cases could throw it off the track. Several such accidents are known. Long boiler locomotives were therefore generally no longer used in Germany in the 1880s, especially not in front of passenger trains , because in the Avenwedde railway accident in 1851 such a locomotive was the cause of the accident in front of an express train. A maximum speed of 50 km / h was therefore set for the KNIEBIS .
The KNIEBIS pulled 28 passenger cars with wooden superstructures, in which around 1200 passengers traveled. According to the regulations, at least 25% of the wagons (i.e. 7) should have been manned with brakes , which in any case was tight on the slope.
the accident
Brakemen were assigned to six of the 28 cars. Since the train had been opened to general traffic for the return journey to Colmar, two of the brakemen took care of collecting the fare after the journey began. Another brakeman was busy instructing a new colleague. The other two did not have sufficient knowledge of the route, so that one did not brake on the decisive gradient and the other braked too weakly. The speed of the train increased due to the weight of the pushing railroad cars . The locomotive began to "bob" and exerted a corresponding intermittent load on the inadequate superstructure, which could not absorb this. The locomotive staff tried to brake with the brakes on the locomotive and tender - in vain. At the excessive speed of approx. 70 km / h - speedometers for speed control were still unknown - the KNIEBIS derailed at around 20:20 when the rails gave way under it and got stuck in the swampy terrain. This happened on the open stretch in a long straight, 5.4 km behind the Freiburg train station at the height of today's Animal Hygiene Institute in the Freiburg district of Landwasser .
The locomotive deformed the track over a length of 226 meters. 25 passenger cars also derailed, wedged into one another and in some cases splintered so completely that only individual parts remained of them. Only four cars remained on the track.
consequences
Immediate consequences
The helpers recovered 64 dead from the wreckage of the destroyed wagons in the rain and storm. Around 230 people survived the accident, seriously injured, five died of their serious injuries in the days after.
Citizens from Hugstetten , Hochdorf and Lehen helped with the rescue measures with horse-drawn carts and handcarts . Since the telegraph line had also been destroyed by the accident, it could not be used to call for help. In addition, the Freiburg train station could not receive any train reports. The Freiburg train station reacted to the “dead” telegraph line by letting the next train follow at 15-minute intervals , just given a cautionary order. The engine driver of the second train, warned by a marshal, was able to brake in time for the scene of the accident.
The bell of the marshals, "Send auxiliary locomotive", was only heeded at around 9.45 pm in Freiburg train station. But there was no auxiliary locomotive there. For example, the locomotive of a freight train that had just arrived was harnessed and used for the rescue train , which only arrived at the scene of the accident two hours after the accident. To send doctors along was forgotten. They were forwarded by horse and cart, but did not arrive until shortly before midnight.
The last of the dead and injured were not recovered until the next morning.
Sadness
In the German Reich, the catastrophe caused sadness and horror. Nationwide, the flags were raised to half-mast and all public celebrations were canceled. The victims were transferred to their home communities in Alsace and buried there; five people found their final resting place in Freiburg. Since 1885 a simple cross erected to commemorate the accident opposite the Animal Hygiene Institute on the road between Freiburg and Hugstetten has been commemorating the accident. It bears the inscription:
This cross bears witness to the horror of death,
which suddenly affects happy people,
but also bears witness to the resurrection
and a Christian pious hope.
Walker!
Pray an Our Father
for those who died on September 3, 1882
on the railway .
Work-up
For the Baden State Railways , the accident was an occasion to only use numbers to designate the locomotives that had traditionally been given names until then. The unlucky locomotive was only slightly damaged and was used again after the repair, which met with considerable suspicion among travelers.
In April 1883, the head of the railway office, the dispatcher in Freiburg and the train driver because of organizational errors and oversight failures as well as the wagon attendant because he had not been in his seat, and also the engine driver (because of insufficient attention) before the large criminal chamber of the Freiburg regional court accused. Because the circumstances of the accident were based on the technical inadequacies of the superstructure and locomotive and the accused could not be blamed for personal guilt, the court acquitted them after five days of hearing. Those responsible for technical and organizational matters were not prosecuted. Their contribution to the accident disappeared in general organizational fault .
literature
- Wolf Middendorf: Railway accident in the Mooswald. In: Freiburg Almanac. 25: 51-56 (1974).
- Hans Joachim Ritzau: Railway disasters in Germany. Splinters of German history . Volume 1, Landsberg-Pürgen 1979, p. 55 ff.
- Rainer Humbach: Railway accident at Hugstetten. In: Railway courier. 1 (2013), pp. 68-71.
Web links
- The railway accident near Freiburg. In: Staufener Wochenblatt , September 7th and September 9th, 1882
- Article about the accident in the “Freiburger Zeitung” of September 6, 1882
- Railway accident on the website of the municipality of March
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Ritzau: Railway disasters. 1979, p. 58.
- ^ Ritzau: Railway disasters. 1979, p. 57.
- ^ Freiburg, September 4 , Bonner Volkszeitung, September 6, 1882, accessed on September 4, 2019
- ^ Ritzau et al.: Shadow of the railway history. Volume 4: German Railway Disasters. Zeit und Eisenbahn Verlag, 1979, ISBN 3-921304-36-9 .
- ↑ Andreas Sassen: The Crown Prince Monument at the Isselhorst-Avenwedde station. In: Contributions to the history of the parish Isselhorst. Gütersloh 2000, p. 7f.
- ^ A b Ritzau: Railway disasters. 1979, p. 55.
- ^ Ritzau: Railway disasters. 1979, p. 57f.
Coordinates: 48 ° 2 ′ 0.5 ″ N , 7 ° 48 ′ 16 ″ E