Sarry railway accident

In the Sarry railway accident on September 17, 1914 near Sarry , France , a hospital train fell from a railway bridge over the Marne that had previously been blown up by the French military . 57 people are believed to have died.

Starting position

In the summer of 1914 the First World War broke out. Since August 3, 1914, there was a state of war between the German Reich and France. In mid-September the front was just east of Reims . In this situation, French military blew preventively a bridge of the railway Chalons-en-Champagne Reims at Sarry, south of Chalons-en-Champagne , make them by the Germans would have been if no longer can be used.

Hospital trains operated between the front and the stage to take the wounded from the front to the hinterland.

the accident

The military did not inform the railway workers in charge of the demolition, nor did they secure the route themselves. The accident happened at night, so that a hospital train, the locomotive driver of which did not see or saw too late that the bridge was no longer passable, was steered into the gap. The train crashed, 6 wagons got stuck on the rubble of the blown bridge. The rest of the train crashed into the river.

consequences

12 dead were rescued, 45 people were missing, so that 57 fatalities can be assumed.

literature

• Ludwig Stockert : Railway accidents (new episode) - Another contribution to railway operations theory . Berlin 1920, no.242.