Railway accident in Lebus

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The railway accident in Lebus was a head-on collision between two trains on June 27, 1977, when a train attendant in Boossen station led a train on the wrong route and had a head-on collision with an oncoming train. 29 people died.

Starting position

In the station Booßen the branches railway Küstrin-Kietz-Frankfurt (Oder) from Eberswalde-Frankfurt (Oder) from. The Boossen station only had two continuous station tracks.

Even after the safety systems were converted in 1974, there was still no station block dependency between the exit signals and the switches . The dispatcher, whose workstation was in the station building, had no way of checking the position of the northern exit points. Instead, a switch attendant was on duty, who received the required route setting from the dispatcher by telephone and then reported the correct position of the switch to the dispatcher, whereupon the dispatcher set the exit signal to "free travel". As an aid, the switchman had a key work at his disposal, which allowed him to check the correct switch position, but does not offer any active security. The switchman who was in charge that night had already been on duty for 12 hours.

The vacationer express train D 1918, pulled by the oil-fired steam locomotive 03 0078 , was on its way from Zittau via Cottbus and Frankfurt (Oder) to Stralsund and had to pass the branch to the Küstrin-Kietz-Frankfurt (Oder) line in Boossen. The locomotive crew was new on this route. It had insufficient knowledge of the route , which would have included driving the route three times, at least once at night. In fact, it had only  traveled the route once to acquire knowledge of the route - during the day in a touring railcar . The accident trip was the engine driver's sixth solo trip on this route, the fourth for the stoker , and it was a night trip. On the Küstrin-Kietz – Frankfurt (Oder) route at the same time, the Dg 50101 through freight train from Kietz in the direction of Boossen was pulled by the 132 200 diesel locomotive .

the accident

One of the two continuous tracks at Boossen station, track 2, was occupied by a parked freight train . When a locomotive train arrived from the direction of Kietz, the switch attendant set the corresponding switch for this entrance to the unoccupied track 4, but another switch that took on the function of a protective switch for this entrance and the branch for the track coming from Eberswalde to the entrance in track 2 or 4 of the station, he left in the position of track 4 to Eberswalde, as was necessary for the expected journey of the D in 1918. To what extent he registered the train passing by his booth is uncertain, at least he fell asleep. When he was woken up by the call from the dispatcher who announced the express train, he did not set any points, had forgotten the passage of the locomotive train from the direction of Kietz and assumed that the points had been correctly set for the journey to Eberswalde. A switch was in the correct position, but the switch that decided whether to go to Kietz or Eberswalde was not. The switch attendant reported that the route to Stralsund had been set without the required route inspection at the key factory. Based on this message, the dispatcher set the exit signal to "Drive free". Even the staff on the express locomotive did not notice, due to a lack of route information, that they were being directed to the wrong route . In the erroneous assumption that it was on a main line, it drove at about 100 km / h. Due to the lack of route blocks, none of the trains could be stopped.

To the west of the Lebus stop , the express train and freight train collided head-on. The engine driver of the freight train initiated an emergency braking and jumped from the locomotive . He broke his foot in the process. His companion died in the driver's cab , as did later - still at the scene of the accident - the engine driver and stoker of the steam locomotive. Both locomotives and the first cars on both trains were destroyed. The steam locomotive came so suddenly to a halt, that the first car of its train under the Tender pushed, was thereby completely compressed during the Tender aufbockte and while the cab eindrückte. The second passenger car of the express train was half pushed together. 28 passengers , many of them children from the Zittau district , died in the express train on the way to a company holiday camp on the Baltic Sea . The first two freight cars loaded with paper caught fire due to leaking oil from the steam locomotive's furnace . The two locomotives were so badly damaged that they were subsequently retired. The property damage amounted to 4 million marks .

consequences

29 people (26 passengers, the locomotive staff of the express train and the man on the freight train) died, 7 were seriously injured and numerous others were slightly injured.

The severely traumatized train driver who was in the rear of the train survived the accident without major physical injuries. Using a telephone at a level crossing , he called the dispatcher in Boossen, who at first didn't understand what had happened because he thought the express train was on a completely different route. First aid was provided by the citizens of Lebus and their volunteer fire brigade . At first, the rescue teams did not want to believe that the sheet of metal behind the steam locomotive was actually the remains of three passenger cars because they were squeezed into such a small space. The fire brigade from Frankfurt (Oder) also arrived and made sure that the fire from the burning freight wagons did not spread to the passenger cars. Transport Minister Otto Arndt was in charge of rescue, recovery and investigation on site. Other helpers came from the NVA , the Soviet Army , the police, civil defense , the Reichsbahn and the transport police .

The switchman was sentenced on July 18, 1977 by the District Court of Frankfurt / Oder as the sole culprit to five years imprisonment and full compensation . He did not commit suicide , as some have claimed, but started his prison sentence. He was released early from prison and was employed again at the Frankfurt / Oder train station. However, no longer in the interlocking service, but in the area of ​​baggage and express goods handling.

The inadequate technical security of the station was concealed in front of and by the court. In the internal report, however, it was admitted on the grounds that the Deutsche Reichsbahn had not been provided with sufficient funds and material for this purpose. Transport Minister Otto Arndt said in the running camera: " The safety systems worked perfectly ". That was not wrong - only there were hardly any security systems. The missing safety technology in Boossen was fixed on December 18, 1979 by an electromechanical signal box .

literature

  • Lothar Meyer and Horst Regling: Railway junction Frankfurt, Oder: the gateway to the east . Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 3-613-71126-5 [here: reminder of the train driver Werner Grund about the accident].
  • Erich Preuß: D 1918 misdirected. The Lebus disaster . In: Lok Magazin 5/2002, pp. 84–89.
  • Hans-Joachim Ritzau, Jürgen Höstel: The catastrophe scenes of the present = railway accidents in Germany Vol. 2. Pürgen 1983. ISBN 3-921304-50-4 , p. 181f.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ritzau, p. 181, gives 29 deaths.
  2. ↑ Ritzau assumes a damaged freight car that had loaded oil and does not report anything about an oil-fired steam locomotive.
  3. ↑ Ritzau, p. 181, gives property damage of 2,483,183 marks.
  4. ↑ For the first time, “ Westfernsehen ” was permitted in such an accident . The ARD was there. (Preuss: D 1918 , p. 89)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meyer.
  2. ↑ a b Preuss: A later court report . (see: web links).
  3. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 86.
  4. ^ Preuss: A later court report . (see: web links).
  5. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 87.
  6. ↑ Meyer.
  7. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 88f.
  8. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 88.
  9. ↑ Ritzau, p. 182.
  10. ↑ Ritzau, p. 182; Preuss: A later court report . (see: web links).
  11. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 89.
  12. ↑ Tragic train accident (see: web links); Preuss: D 1918 , p. 89.
  13. ^ Preuss: D 1918 , p. 89.

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 33.7 ″  N , 14 ° 31 ′ 6 ″  E