Tram accident in Vienna-Döbling

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Crossing Billrothstraße – Döblinger Hauptstraße – Glatzgasse, on which the accident occurred (here with trains E1 + c3 of line 38 in December 1980).
The Billrothstraße – Döblinger Hauptstraße – Glatzgasse intersection where the accident occurred (here with an E2 + c5 set on line 38 in August 2010).

The tram accident in Vienna-Döbling on August 2, 1960 was the worst accident in the history of the Viennese tram , which occurred in the 19th  district of Döbling at the then unregulated intersection of Billrothstrasse / Glatzgasse with Döblinger Hauptstrasse , with two in both Train sets of line 39, each consisting of a railcar and a sidecar, were involved. In the accident itself and in the days that followed, a total of 19 people (according to other sources: 20 or 21) were killed, over a hundred people were injured, some seriously. The accident is considered to be the worst traffic accident in Vienna to date.

the accident

At 4:45 p.m. ( Express ) or 4:49 p.m. ( Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe ) or 4:53 p.m. ( Arbeiter-Zeitung ) or 4:55 p.m. ( Die Presse ), a two-car train with railcar 2468 coming from Sievering into town got caught the sloping Billrothstraße out of control at excessive speed. In the subsequent right-hand bend at the intersection of Billrothstrasse and Döblinger Hauptstrasse, the railcar jumped off the rails and rammed its end face into the left front of railcar 2448 of the counter-train coming from the Schottentor and just leaving the stop, into which the demolished roof of the accident car was bored who began to turn into Billrothstrasse. A police officer standing at the intersection in the Rayon Service, who was an eyewitness to the accident, estimated the speed of the set driving into the city and causing the accident to be around 60 km / h, another eyewitness said, “that the train is at least seventy kilometers per hour the curve must have been. ”Several car drivers could only escape the coming accident by“ accelerating ”. A car driver who was standing behind the following rammed train at the Glatzgasse station, and on whose front part the railcar tipped, is quoted in the press as saying: "In the space between the railcar and the trailer of the 39ers I suddenly saw something huge, red the tram to come. Then there was a deafening crash, a cloud of dust, and the railcar that was next to my car tipped over towards me. "

Due to the force of the impact, both trains derailed. While the sidecars remained upright, both railcars were overturned. The wooden body of the railcar 2468 driving into town was completely smashed and the roof was completely torn off, the same old railcar 2448 of the train going out of town was partially destroyed. Not only the complete destruction of the car bodies in one case and at least partial destruction in the other, but also the sharp-edged splinters of the wooden components led to the most serious and fatal injuries to the passengers. The trains were very busy with passengers on their way home from work “at the time when they were very busy”.

In a report by Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe, the course of the accident reads as follows:

"Tuesday, August 2nd, at 4:49 p.m., a train on line 39 coming from Billrothstrasse, for currently unknown reasons, passed through the Billrothstrasse-Döblinger Hauptstrasse stop, derailed in the Döblinger Hauptstrasse curved track next to Glatzgasse and hit the left-hand railcar frontally. Side wall of a train on line 39 leaving the stop on the other track collided. The railcar of this train also derailed. Both railcars were overturned to the left. "

- Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe : quoted from: City Hall correspondence of August 3, 1960.

The daily Express published "the timetable of the catastrophe" in one issue:

"16:25 Departure Sievering, train no. 2468
16:30 First braking problem. Passengers get restless
4:40 p.m. Some passengers leave the tram no. 2468
4:43 p.m. stop at Peter-Jordan-Strasse. Braking difficulties again. Train only stops at the last moment.
16:44 Train races down the sloping Billrothstrasse, overtaking cars. Panic in the wagons. Passengers jump from
4:45 p.m. The engine operator is no longer able to stop the train. She rushes past the stop, jumps off the rails at the switches in Döblinger Hauptstrasse, the railcar rears up and rams the railcar on the opposite train.
Total chaos 16:47 First rescue operations
16:55 Full police alarm . Three radio cars arrived. Emergency team requested
16:56 Seven ambulances and eight ambulances on the way to the scene of the accident
17:00 Fire brigade intervenes. Passers-by, together with the police and firefighters, rescue the seriously injured.
17:05 The first doctor at the scene of the accident. Immediately afterwards, a large-scale deployment of paramedics
5:10 p.m. 50 men from the police force arrived. The scene of the accident is cordoned off
.
17:16 Radio car Richard reports: At least 30 people seriously injured. Chaos on the street. Loudspeaker van urgently required
17:20 The evacuation of the injured begins. All doctors in the area are alerted.
17:25 alarm in the hospitals. Operating theaters are cleared.
17:30
Removal of the seriously injured is finished. 17:32 People gather in front of the hospitals
17:35 Police intervene. Hospital Webergasse must be cordoned off
17:40 First precise report: 10 dead, 30 seriously injured, 50 slightly injured
17:50 The eleventh fatality
18:00 No fatality identified
yet 18:03 The name of the first dead person is known: motor operator Franz Trumler [actually : Johann Trumler according to the reports in the Arbeiter-Zeitung ]
21:10 Nine bodies in the forensic institute. Not identified.
22:05 16 fatalities "

- Express : quoted from: Tramwayforum.at

After the accident

Immediately after the accident, the Mayor of Vienna, Franz Jonas, and the Minister of the Interior, Josef Afritsch , accompanied by City Councilors Heller (construction matters), Glück (health care) and Mandl (culture, public education and school administration), went to the scene of the accident and met the Viennese who were already there Police chief Josef Holaubek . After Jonas instructed the health councilor Glück to “go to the emergency room himself and personally manage the care of the seriously injured”, “[he] considered it his duty to inform the population about the terrible accident.” So he drove off accident away in the broadcasting center of the ORF in the Argentinierstraße (4th district Wieden ), where the radio daily program was interrupted. After a short account by Jonas of the accident, his condolences to the relatives of the victims and wishes for recovery to the injured, the first movement of the 9th Symphony was played by Anton Bruckner . In the evening, Mayor Jonas visited the injured people who had been injured in the tram accident who had been taken to the general hospital and the accident hospital in Webergasse .

In the days that followed, extensive reports were made about the accident, the victims and the course of the accident. The day after, the Arbeiter-Zeitung (AZ) reported 14 deaths, including the two locomotive drivers, as well as 30 seriously injured and many slightly injured, the daily newspaper Die Presse , which also published a sketch of the scene of the accident, named in a 2 The self- report dated August 3rd (the day of the accident) 16 dead, 40 seriously injured, 44 slightly injured and the city hall correspondence of the City of Vienna of August 3 wrote of 18 dead and over 40 seriously injured. In the following days, the number of dead and injured was corrected upwards several times, so that the AZ reported 19 deaths by August 12 .

Railcar type K number 2447 in February 1978 in the Erdberg depot (the railcars involved in the accident had the numbers 2448 and 2468)
Railcar type K number 2449 in June 1971 (the railcars involved in the accident had the numbers 2448 and 2468)
Type K railcar number 2319 on a special trip in September 1982. Here you can see the walls and the interior furnishings made entirely of wood; standing at the driver's cab of the tram driver.
A tram train in the same configuration as the two crashed trains (here the set of the Wiener Tramwaymuseum (WTM) association with the type K 2319 railcar and the type m2 5200 sidecar as a special trip in 1982).
Sidecar type m3 number 5319 in March 1979 (the sidecars involved in the accident had the numbers 5328 and 5419)
Sidecar type m3 in November 1979 on the “battle track” in the main workshop in Simmering : The frame of the wooden box can be clearly seen in this picture.

Vehicles involved and whereabouts

Two-car trains on line 39, both consisting of multiple units and sidecars, were involved in the accident:

  • Driving down into town and causing the accident:
    • Railcar type K, No. 2468 (already equipped with rail brake); manufactured: Simmeringer Waggonfabrik , October 30, 1913; cashed on October 15, 1961
    • with sidecar type m3, No. 5328; manufactured: Simmeringer Waggonfabrik, 1929; cashed on January 19, 1979
  • Driving out of town:
    • Railcar type K, No. 2448; manufactured: Simmeringer Waggonfabrik, October 30, 1913; cashed on November 1, 1963
    • with sidecar type m3, no. 5419; manufactured: Grazer Waggonfabrik , 1929; cashed on January 19, 1979

The train driving downhill at excessive speed from the drunk driver could not be stopped and drove almost unbraked - the engine brake, as the investigations revealed, was brake level 2 (according to another report: brake level 3), otherwise the railcar was neither by the handbrake, still braked by the rail brake - into the curved track from Billroth to Döblinger Hauptstrasse. There the set derailed and the railcar 2468, on which the roof came off during the impact, rammed the frontal railcar 2448, which was just leaving the Glatzgasse stop. The roof of the other car pushed into the front left into the middle of the car. While both K railcars overturned and suffered total write-offs, the two m3 sidecars remained upright and almost undamaged. After restoration, they were in service for a few years.

Immediately after the accident, the two sets of accidents were taken to the nearby Gürtel depot and initially kept under lock and key until the official investigations were completed. After completing this, the transport companies also made their own investigations. At least the two railcars were still present in the Gürtel station in August 1960, as photo documentation of the K 2468 and K 2448 show. The railcar 2448 was spotted years later, together with two sidecars (number 3605 and one more) as a three-car train in the scrap yard behind the storage hall of the Remise Simmering (internally called "scrap storage " at that time). Above the wagon number was written "Stopped" and below "1962".

Cause of accident

The first suspicion of brake failure was not confirmed. The technical examination showed that the drive switch, handbrake and rail brake were in order. Through test drives with a similar set it was found that it would have been possible to bring the train to a standstill with the handbrake even from excessive speed. The autopsy of the driver of the downhill train, who had also died, revealed that at the time of the accident he was highly intoxicated (2.6 per mille blood alcohol concentration ) and was therefore no longer able to control the train; Gradually it became known that he had not been able to stop correctly at the bus stops before the accident.

Consequences in Viennese tram operation

After the accident, a controversy arose between the Vienna City Councilor Anton Schwaiger ( ÖVP ) and Gräf & Stift AG about the reasons for delays in the delivery of modern all-steel vehicles.

Although the Wiener Stadtwerke - Verkehrsbetriebe gradually put modern vehicles into service in the following years, the last wooden superstructures with open doors, slip ring drive switches and stationary driver did not disappear from regular service until December 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The 19th fatality in the tram disaster . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 12, 1960, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  2. ↑ Professional fire brigade of the city of Vienna (Magistratsabteilung 68): Fire brigade history: From the 1960s - significant operations and events: 1960 - road accidents. ( Memento from May 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: wien.at. City of Vienna (Ed.), Accessed on October 1, 2018.
  3. ^ A b c d e Karl Holzinger in: Re: Accident line 38 in the 60s. Posting in the archive of Stadtverkehr Austria - photo list, November 23, 2003, accessed on October 1, 2018. Attached to it is a photo of the scene of the accident on the day of the accident, August 2, 1960, taken from the magazine Eisenbahn in August 1970, which it contained on the occasion of the suspension of Line 39 has appeared. (The photo is apparently the one from the title page in the press from August 3, 1960.) The picture clearly shows how the torn-off roof of railcar 2468 extends with its front side alongside the left front of the rammed railcar 2448 and pushed it into the middle of the car.
  4. ↑ Thomas Wolff: Finally a place for the memorial plaque? In: mein district.at - Vienna. Wiener Bezirkszeitung (Ed.), February 23, 2011. (Full text in: "13er": Re: 2.8.1960: 39er accident Billrothstrasse. In: Tramwayforum.at. Martin Piskernig (Ed.), Posting from March 7, 2011 , accessed October 1, 2018.)
  5. ↑ Günter Stummvoll: There is no place for the memorial plaque: A plaque to commemorate the tram accident of 1960 on Döblinger Hauptstrasse is to be found. In: mein district.at - Vienna. Wiener Bezirkszeitung (Ed.), December 2, 2013, accessed on October 1, 2018.
  6. ↑ a b c "13er": Re: 2.8.1960: 39er accident on Billrothstrasse. In: Tramwayforum.at. Martin Piskernig (Ed.), Posting from February 11, 2011, accessed on October 1, 2018.
  7. ↑ a b c 3.8.1960: The great catastrophe. In: Historical review of the town hall correspondence - reports from August 1960 . City of Vienna (Ed.), Accessed on October 1, 2018.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Tram disaster in Vienna: Two 39er trains collided: 14 dead, 30 seriously injured, many slightly injured - both motorists among the dead - the largest tram accident in the history of the city . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 3, 1960, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized). (With a close-up of the scene of the accident from an elevated position, which shows, among other things, the two totally damaged railcars lying on their side, and which makes the extent of the impact of the accident imaginable.)
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g Harald Jahn in: Re: Accident line 38 in the 60s. Posting in the archive of Stadtverkehr Austria - photo list, November 23, 2003, accessed on September 30, 2018. Three scanned pages (without page numbers) from the press dated August 3, 1960, possibly the evening edition on August 2:
    • Front page: Two trains on line 39 collided: 16 dead, 40 seriously injured, 44 slightly injured.
    • Inside, marked as “self-report of the 'press' - Vienna, August 2nd”: An inferno on the corner of Billrothstrasse – Döblinger Hauptstrasse: line 39 speeding towards the city collided with a counter-train - railcar cut in half - hit the driver of the Heatstroke? - Horrible scenes at the intersection - Big alarm for the rescue - Last unction on the street.
    • Two accident sketches: A few seconds before the disaster and the collision.
  10. ↑ See on this: State government and city senate Jonas III .
  11. ↑ The tram disaster: The mayor spoke on the radio . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna August 3, 1960, p. 5 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  12. ^ Type K (Vienna, 1912-1972). In: Stadtverkehr-Austria-Wiki, accessed on October 1, 2018.
  13. ^ Type m3 (Vienna, 1928-1979). In: Stadtverkehr-Austria-Wiki, accessed on October 1, 2018.
  14. ^ A b Karl Holzinger in: Re: Accident line 39 in the 60s. Posting in the archive of Stadtverkehr Austria - photo list, November 23, 2003, accessed on October 1, 2018: It contains a photo documentation of the individual parts of the railcar no.2468 causing the accident, taken at the Gürtel train station in August 1960.
  15. ^ A b Karl Holzinger in: Re: Accident line 39 in the 60s. Posting in the archive of Stadtverkehr Austria - photo list, November 23, 2003, accessed on September 30, 2018: It contains a photo documentation of the individual parts of the railcar no.2468 that caused the accident, taken at the Gürtel train station in August 1960.
  16. ↑ Harald Marincig (ed.): The Tramway scrap yard. In: Retrospect: Stories about railways in words and pictures, October 1, 2017, on the website Der Traminator von Marincig, who was founder in 1986 and headed the Vienna Tram Museum until his retirement in that year . (Direct link to: Railcar K 2448, sidecar 3605 and another sidecar on a photograph by Alfred Rosenkranz.) Retrieved on October 1, 2018: “I remembered: If I wanted to move to a coach house in the future, it was just the shifter for me the first point of contact. I then reached the “Simmering waste material warehouse” completely unmolested. // Unfortunately, the Simmering scrapyard was closed when the new central workshop was completed. For some time the vehicles were scrapped there until the environmental regulations made this cheap vehicle recycling impossible. "
  17. ↑ a b See the reports in the Arbeiter-Zeitung in August 1960:
  18. ↑ See Type M (Vienna, 1927-1979), section history. In: Stadtverkehr-Austria-Wiki, accessed on October 1, 2018.

Coordinates: 48 ° 14 ′ 0 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 11.4 ″  E