Osijek railway accident
The railway accident in Osijek occurred as a result of a bridge collapse on September 23, 1882 in Osijek (then also: Esseg ) in present-day Croatia (then: Transleithanien / Kingdom of Hungary within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy ). 26 people died.
Starting position
The affected railway bridge led the route over the Drau . It was a wooden structure based on the system developed by William Howe with nine openings of 30 meters each. The bridge was only considered to be partially stable; a new construction made of iron on stone pillars had begun upstream in early 1882. The stone pillars of the new building were scaffolded in September 1882 in order to be able to assemble the supporting structure .
In September there was very high rainfall in Carinthia and Tyrol , which led to an extreme flood of the Drau. The river also carried considerable amounts of debris with it.
the accident
The floating debris got caught in large quantities on the scaffolding of the new bridge. Workers tried to smuggle the flotsam through the relatively narrow passages. But that had to be stopped on the night of September 22nd to 23rd due to poor visibility. Finally, the pent-up flotsam broke its way, taking part of the scaffolding with it, hit the wooden bridge and stuck there. The engineer in charge had a locomotive test run and then opened the bridge to traffic at slow speed, which initially happened without any alarming signs. However, the driftwood that was washed up led to a current which - as the later investigation found - caused scouring on the seventh pillar of the bridge .
When the fifth train, which crossed the bridge in this way at around 2:10 p.m., a mixed train from Osijek / Esseg, reached the seventh arch, the sixth arch sagged: the excavation had become so large that the bridge pillar was under the weight the train gave way. The sixth and seventh arches of the bridge collapsed, tearing the part of the train that was there with them into the depths. These were the locomotive, its tender and six freight cars , the last two of which were used to transport soldiers. The following rail mail and passenger cars derailed and stopped on the part of the bridge that was not collapsing.
consequences
26 people died, all soldiers who were in the first of the two transport vehicles. The other soldiers as well as the railway personnel were able to save themselves by swimming.
literature
- Bernhard Püschel: Historical railway disasters. A chronicle of accidents from 1840 to 1926 . Freiburg 1977. ISBN 3-88255-838-5