Ramaquabane railway accident
The rail accident at Ramaquabane on April 4, 1938 was the head-on collision of an express train and a freight train in Southern Rhodesia (today: Zimbabwe ), near the Plumtree border station to Bechuanaland (today: Botswana ). 26 people died.
Starting position
The railway line from Bulawayo to South Africa was secured in a procedure in which the train drivers in the stations were sent driving orders by the station staff, which were sent to the stations by telegram from a central train control center .
The fast train from Bulawayo to South Africa and a traveling northward freight should be planned in the station tsessebe cross . However, the freight train ran “ahead of schedule”, so it was faster than originally planned. The train control center then relocated the train crossing to the Ramaquabane station , which was transmitted to the locomotive drivers of both trains.
the accident
A mistake crept in the information chain, however, and the locomotive driver of the freight train was informed that the new crossing point was the Vakaranga station . He then drove over the crossing point Ramaquabane and it came to a head-on collision of both trains. This happened in a deep cut in the terrain, which severely hindered the subsequent rescue work.
consequences
26 people died and 22 were also injured.
literature
- Peter WB Semmens: Disasters on the rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 .