Railway accident at Gare de Lyon
The railway accident at Gare de Lyon was the rear-end collision of a local train , the brake of which was accidentally disabled, on a second local train standing in the underground station of Gare de Lyon in Paris on June 27, 1988 at 7:09 p.m. 56 people died.
initial situation
The Gare de Lyon is a terminus station and has an underground station with four tracks, which is used for suburban traffic. The driver André Tanguy should have left track 2 at 19:04 with the local train No. 153951, a type Z 5300 railcar to Melun . However, his driver was late, so that five minutes later he was still standing on the platform. This meant that more and more travelers got on. The foremost vehicle of the railcar was exactly at the height of the access stairs to the platform, so that the train was particularly full here.
A second train, No. 153944, was on its way from Melun (departure 17:38) to Paris. The service was provided by two four- unit railcars , also of the type Z 5300. These vehicles have a compressed air brake on the one hand, and an electric brake on the other , which is intended to reduce the wear on the brake pads when braking at high speed. The electric brakes, however, were reluctant to be used by the drivers, as their use together with the compressed air brakes could block the wheels.
Shortly before June 27, 1988, the change to the summer schedule took place. One traveler, a 21-year-old single mother, had missed the fact that the train no longer stopped at Le Vert de Maisons station. In order to be able to pick up her children from school in good time, she activated the emergency brake at 6:36 p.m. , got out and then quickly left the train station.
the accident
Done at Le Vert de Maisons train station
The driver had to reset the brakes of the railcar to normal after the emergency braking. To do this, he had to pull a lever on the wall between the cars. To do this, he used the next accessible lever between the front motor vehicle and the second segment of the motor vehicle. Since the lever was stuck, the driver looked for additional support. In doing so, he accidentally and unnoticed closed the continuous brake line. As a result, the rear seven (of a total of eight) cars were separated from the braking system.
This initially led to the driver not being able to release the brakes of these cars that were still applied from the emergency braking. In accordance with regulations, the driver should now have called a technician who would probably have recognized the error. However, summoning a technician would have taken a long time and the driver did not want to be late: he tried to solve the problem himself. He believed that the air pressure in the brake line was too high, that a so-called "air lock" had arisen, which can happen when the emergency brake is applied. So he walked along one side of the train and manually released the compressed air on all seven vehicles. The platoon leader did the same on the other side of the train. This released the brakes. The inadvertently closed main brake line no longer allowed air to enter the brake system of the seven rear vehicles; their brakes were therefore inoperative. Only the brakes of the railcar itself, and thus only one eighth of the usual braking power, were still available.
The stay in the station had taken a long time and some travelers left the train to reach their destinations differently. This has reduced the number of later injured parties.
Drive to the Gare de Lyon
The pressure gauge on the front engine showed normal reading, which led the driver to believe that everything was okay. However, only the pressure in the braking system of the locomotive itself was displayed. At 19:02 the train started again with a considerable delay of 26 minutes and the driver spoke to the train control center by radio . This instructed him to skip the last scheduled stop in front of the Gare de Lyon, Maisons-Alfort , in order to make up for some of the delay and not to obstruct other trains. This train station is 6.5 km from the Gare de Lyon on level ground. If the driver had tried to stop here, he would have noticed the lack of braking force. The train could then have rolled out.
1.5 km in front of the Gare de Lyon a signal showed "expect slow speed" and the driver braked. He noticed that the brake wasn't working properly. With only a fraction of the braking force available, he could only brake the train from 96 to 45 km / h. Then he reached the ramp that drops at 43 ‰ to the underground station of the Gare de Lyon. Now gravity outweighed the remaining braking force and the train accelerated. At 7:07:30 p.m. the driver informed the train control center that he had no functioning brakes. This triggered a general alarm in the relevant signal box and the driver's cabs of the trains in the vicinity of about 10 km. In the hurry, the driver made two fatal mistakes:
- When notifying the signal box, he forgot to indicate from which train he was reporting and
- he forgot the seldom used electric brake and didn't turn it on. It would probably have absorbed a significant part of the train's energy. According to later calculations, there would have been only a slight impact when it was used.
On the other hand, the driver saved the lives of many passengers by leaving the driver's cab and putting them in the last car. So you were prepared for the impact and in the relatively safest place on the train. None of these travelers were seriously injured.
In the Gare de Lyon
The switches in the entrance to the underground station at Gare de Lyon were programmed in such a way that a train automatically approached a free platform. Unlike in Germany, it is not common in France to assign a track to a train in the timetable. This is usually decided flexibly depending on the traffic situation. After the emergency call was received in the signal box that was responsible for the underground station, its dispatcher set all signals to "Stop" with an emergency switch. However, this also disabled the automatic system that automatically assigned an arriving train to a free platform. This circuit should have the effect that the employees at the signal box should have full control of the track systems in an emergency.
The intended procedure for a train that got out of control was to guide it onto a free track. Since the driver of the train from Melun had forgotten to give his name or the train, the dispatcher could consider four trains as possibly out of control, all of which lead to the Gare de Lyon. The driver of the train from Melun was also no longer available for the dispatcher, as he had started to evacuate the passengers on his train to the rear of the train.
Because all signals were now showing "Stop", all other trains stopped. Their drivers tried to reach the dispatcher. The flood of calls in the few seconds left prevented the dispatcher from identifying the problem train.
Since all the default settings for the routes were deleted, the points for the train from Melun were not set as programmed, but remained in the position they had assumed when the emergency program was put into effect. The train from Melun was thus on a collision course with the train that was still standing on the platform with a slight delay. The train driver had appeared in the meantime, but the exit signal for the train showed "Stop" - like all other signals in the station. If the train from Melun had driven into the originally intended, free track, this would have led to a buffer crossing. The train would have been damaged, but it would not have hit the second train and probably nobody would have been seriously injured.
It was only 30 seconds before the impact that it was clear to the signal box which train had suffered the braking problem and that the runaway train was entering the occupied track. The signal box asked passengers to leave the train over the loudspeakers on the platform. Train driver André Tanguy heard this and in turn asked the passengers to leave the train immediately via the train's intercom. When he saw the train approaching him, he stayed at the microphone and repeated his warning. In doing so, he saved the lives of many passengers. He himself did not survive the impact.
consequences
Scene of the accident
At over 70 km / h, the arriving train crashed into the train at 19:09. This was compressed against the back wall and in itself 30 meters. The first vehicles of the trains pushed into each other and others of the stationary train were destroyed. Very few of those who had not yet left the car survived. 56 people died in the accident and 57 were also injured.
The first rescue workers arrived at 19:20. Some of the injured could only be recovered from the rubble in time by amputation of limbs. Personnel and passengers of the train from Melun who were gathered in the rear of the train during the accident got away with minor injuries.
A memorial was later erected on platform B of the underground station and every year a memorial service is held in the station for survivors and bereaved.
Investigations
Initially, an act of terrorism or sabotage was also considered possible, as there had been attacks on trains in the previous seven years.
The investigative commission came to the following conclusions:
- The main cause of the accident was the misconduct of the driver of the Melun train.
- The lever used to shut off the brake line was too easy to move.
- The railway radio was too complicated and the train drivers should have been better trained for it.
- The emergency program must be redesigned in such a way that all signals show "Stop" without the automatic train control being omitted.
Technical consequences
As a result, a permanent emergency brake override was installed in the trains , which means that the passenger only alerts the driver by pulling the emergency brake, who then triggers the braking. Highly absorbent buffer stops have been installed in terminal stations . The training of train drivers has been improved and the radio system has been modernized.
Legal proceedings
The traveler, who had applied the emergency brake in Vert de Maisons, reported after a call in the media the day after the accident. Criminal proceedings were initiated against them as well as against the driver, the train driver and the employees at the signal box . In the first instance the driver was sentenced to four years imprisonment for negligent homicide . The train driver received six months suspended prison sentence , the passengers who had operated the emergency brake and the employees of the signal box received fines. The ruling triggered a strike at the SNCF the following day .
The second instance trial before the appellate court ended with a sentence of six months in prison with probation for the driver and a fine for the passenger who had pulled the emergency brake. Everyone else was acquitted .
literature
- Bernard Collardey: Les trains de banlieue, 2nd vol .: La Vie du Rail . 1999, ISBN 2-902808-76-3
Web links
- Photos of the scene of the accident and a sketch of what happened ( memento from April 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Collardey, p. 226.
- ^ Dominique Bègles: Prison-ferme ( Memento of January 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: L'Humanité v. December 15, 1992.
- ↑ NN: Gare de lyon: une catastrophe en appel ( Memento from January 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: L'Humanité v. September 16, 1993.
Coordinates: 48 ° 50 ′ 41 ″ N , 2 ° 22 ′ 25 ″ E