Railway accident in Lucerne

This article deals with the accident of 1932. For the accidents of 1898 and 2017, see the list of railway accidents in Switzerland 1890–1899 and the list of railway accidents in Switzerland from 2010

Lucerne railway station access in 1932

Legend                        from Olten from Lenzburg 90.19 0.00 Emmenbrücke Friedental 120 m from Rotkreuz-Zurich Reuss Lucerne 142 m Zimmereregg 1134 m from Bern 91.83 64.01 91.82 Fluhmühle Musegg 2107 m from Immensee Reuss Geissmatt 130 m 2.22 92.85 Sentimatt Gütsch 326 m Schönheim 199 m   from Interlaken Ost 95.09 Lucerne The Fluhmühle – Lucerne line was operated as a fake double track at that time.

The Ae 3/6 ^I 10645 in the main workshop in Zurich, severely damaged in the collision

On December 13, 1932, the passenger train 554 Lucerne-Immensee- Arth-Goldau collided with the international express train 264 Stuttgart- Zurich-Lucerne in the Gütschtunnel near Lucerne .

Starting position

The then double-track Fluhmühle – Lucerne line through the Gütsch and Schönheim tunnels is the only standard-gauge access to Lucerne station . The line was operated as a fake double track. The trains to and from Rotkreuz – Zurich and Immensee – Arth-Goldau used the eastern track. The trains to and from Olten and Bern ran on the western track.

Course of the accident

An express train coming from Zurich with a scheduled arrival in Lucerne at 3:02 p.m. did not wait at Sentimatt for the passenger train to Arth-Goldau that left at 2:52 p.m. The express train had passed a closed signal in front of the Gütsch tunnel , cut open the deflection switch of the opposing train in the Sentimatt block station and collided head-on with the passenger train in the tunnel. Six people were killed and 20 passengers were injured, some seriously. Among the dead were the two engine drivers, the driver of the passenger train and three passengers of the express train.

Depressed face of Ae 3/6 ^I 10645

The collision took place not far from the tunnel exit. The aid proved to be difficult because the pitch-dark tunnel was completely filled with rubble. After setting up a lighting system, help initially concentrated on the most destroyed second class car on the express train. To rescue the victims, the longitudinal wall was cut open. Although the mail car of this train was completely smashed by the force of the impact, two post officials remained practically uninjured. Since the train to Arth-Goldau brought some wagons with cattle, this also had to be salvaged. Its roar mixed with the screams of the trapped casualties, some of whom had to wait up to two and a half hours to be rescued.

Over 200 workers and one auxiliary vehicle each from Zurich and Olten were used for the clean-up work . With the exception of the narrow-gauge Brünigbahn, rail traffic in Lucerne was practically paralyzed. Traffic was resumed on December 15th.

Cause of accident

The results of the accident investigations confirm that the collision was caused by the crossing of the stop signal. The disregard of the signal could not be attributed to the unconsciousness of the locomotive driver, because he had decelerated the train 264 from 73 km / h according to the regulations to the 65 km prescribed for driving on the Sentimatt bridge. He had released the brake again 150 m before the accident site. The passenger train from Lucerne was traveling at around 40 km / h at the time of the collision. The engine driver tried to brake the train.

Thick fog and smoke from a steam locomotive restricted the view of the locomotive driver of the express train coming from Zurich to the distant signal . He was probably distracted by an oncoming freight train that exceeded its loading gauge and crossed in the area of ​​the distant signal. Because this train carried a large pipe that protruded in places over the clearance profile , the contact line for the Olten track was switched off and the transport was carried out with a steam locomotive.

consequences

From 1934 to 1937 the SBB equipped all distant signals with the Integra-Signum .

After the accident, unions objected to the one-man driving of locomotives. A driver 's assistant could have made the engine driver aware of the closed signal. However, the SBB and other railways denied that the introduction of one-man operation meant that more and more signals indicating stop were ignored. The press criticized the SBB for the fact that this accident could have been prevented with a train protection system like the one that already existed in other countries. On December 1, 1933, the SBB decided to introduce the Integra-Signum train protection system across the board.

The Lucerne city ​​council called for an expansion of the congested access to the Lucerne terminus . On June 6, 1939, a third track was put into operation.

The two locomotives damaged by the accident, the Ae 3/6 I 10645 of the express train from Zurich and the Be 4/6 12335 of the passenger train, were rebuilt.

References and comments

1. ↑ ^{a b} The three-track entrance to the Lucerne train station. (PDF; 12.1 MB) Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Volume 114 (1939), Issue 24, pp. 284–286 , accessed on November 23, 2013 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Serious railway accident near Lucerne. (PDF; 350 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. December 15, 1932, p. 2 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The train collision in the Gütschtunnel near Lucerne. (PDF; 0.9 MB) Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Volume 101 (1933), Issue 5, p. 63 , accessed on December 21, 2013 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Serious railway disaster near Lucerne. (PDF; 278 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Nachrichten. December 17, 1932, p. 1 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c} On the train disaster near Lucerne. (PDF; 278 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. December 17, 1932, p. 7 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
6. ^ The official investigation into the Lucerne railway accident. (PDF; 301 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. January 7, 1933, p. 3 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
7. ↑ Les résultats de l'enquête sur la catastrophe ferroviaire de Lucerne. (Le Temps - archives historiques) (No longer available online.) Journal de Genève, January 7, 1933, p. 3 , archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; Retrieved November 20, 2013 (French). 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.  
8. ↑ Ascanio Schneider and Armin Masé write in Disasters on Rails (Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1968) that after a steam train had passed through the tunnel the view was limited, whereupon a locomotive driver ran over a closed signal. According to the official investigation report, however, the cause of the accident was not steam in the tunnel , but that a train traveling in the direction of Olten, which was hauled by a steam locomotive, encountered the train coming from Zurich at the time it passed the disregarded distant signal and obstructed the view (cf. the two previous individual verifications). To avoid the collision, the train from Zurich would have had to wait for the passenger train going to Arth-Goldau to pass before the northern entrance signal of the Sentimatt service station. There was never a tunnel between Sentimatt and the junction of the Oltner from the Zurich line (according to Hans G. Wägli: Schienennetz Schweiz and Bahnprofil Schweiz CH + . AS Verlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909111-74-9 . ).
9. ↑ Again the one-man cast. (PDF; 2.6 MB) In: Organ of the International Transport Workers' Federation. April 1933, p. 4 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Growing confidence. (PDF; 344 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. January 12, 1933, p. 4 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
11. ↑ Fritz Steiner: Security measures against driving over closed railway signals. (PDF; 2.8 MB) Conclusion. Schweizerische Bauzeitung, Volume 103 (1934), Issue 25, p. 295 , accessed on December 21, 2013 . 
12. ^ Hans Schneeberger: The electric and diesel traction vehicles of the SBB, Volume I: Years 1904–1955 . Minirex AG, Lucerne 1995, ISBN 3-907014-07-3 , p. 57 and 92 .