Brühl railway accident

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The Brühl railway accident occurred in the first hour of Sunday February 6, 2000 in the Brühl train station (Rhineland) on the left bank of the Rhine . The D 203 Switzerland Express pulled by locomotive 101 092 from Amsterdam Centraal to Basel SBB drove at excessive speed over a switch in a branching position and derailed . Nine passengers were killed.

prehistory

The Brühl train station. After the accident it was completely renovated, with track 3 on which the accident occurred being dismantled. In its former place you can see the soundproof wall on the far right.

The Brühl station consists of two parts, the freight station and the passenger station . Trains that travel from Cologne to Bonn like the one in the accident , first pass through the freight yard and then the passenger station.

On the night of the accident, the main track (track 1) in the direction of Bonn at the Brühl freight yard was closed for work. The trains therefore had to use the left track in the station .

Since it is not possible to transfer from the right to the left track in front of the construction site at the Brühl freight station, the train had to be transferred to the opposite track at the Hürth-Kalscheuren station in front of it. The route between Hürth-Kalscheuren and Brühl Güterbahnhof is equipped with signaling for track-changing operations, so that there can also be driven at route speed.

The signaling equipment in the Brühl station did not allow passage on the left through main track (track 2), however, as there was no intermediate signal for the transition from the freight station to the passenger station. As there was consequently no route for this route in the interlocking logic, it had to be secured by hand and the train journey permitted by means of a substitute signal . This procedure was provided for in the construction and operating instructions.

After passing an entry signal as a train journey with a special order (substitute signal, written command), you must drive at a maximum of 40 km / h until the next main signal.

A speed limit stop at 120 km / h was set up on this track to protect the neighboring construction site, but trains in the direction of Bonn were only allowed to travel at 40 km / h due to the signaling described. In the directory of the speed limits (La), which the driver has in front of him during the journey, the restriction for the direction of travel of the train involved in the accident from route kilometers 13.5 to route kilometers 13.6 was specified as follows:

  • for the duration of the construction work on the right track: 120 km / h on the left track (irritating entry, since only 40 km / h is allowed due to the replacement signal)
  • for the time after the construction work: 90 km / h on the right track

It could not be finally clarified whether at the time of the accident there was a slow-speed disc on the right of the left track just behind the entry signal from Brühl Güterbahnhof. This slow-speed disc was found there later, but it was also possibly not installed until after the accident. However, it did not have the code number 12, but the code number 9 (90 km / h). Apparently it had already been set up for the time after the construction work and should then apply to the right track. In this case, however, it should normally have been to the right of the right track. Since there was a lack of space there due to switches and other signals, it was also allowed to stand to the left of the right track, i.e. to the right of the left track - but it should have been made clear with an allocation table (an arrow) that it applies to the right track, since signals in the station area otherwise always stand to the right of the track to which they apply.

Nevertheless, according to the driving service regulations, the driver always has to choose the higher security, i.e. the lower speed, if there are several different details.

This was particularly important in this case, as it was also not possible to drive through the passenger station on the left through main track, because there was no exit signal on track 2 in this direction of travel. Therefore, in order to enable a signaled exit, the trains had to be routed via track 3, which meant that about two kilometers after the replacement signal, turnout 48 had to branch off to the left.

the accident

When entering the Hürth-Kalscheuren train station, a distant signal indicated to the driver that the exit signal would indicate the main signal aspect Hp 2 (slow travel). The driver confirmed via the system of punctual train control (PZB) that he had recognized this distant signal, braked and switched from the right to the left track at the speed that was reduced in accordance with the regulations. The signal Hp 2 on an exit signal applies until the last wagon of the train has cleared the adjacent switch area , then the line speed. When the last wagon of his train had passed the switches, the driver was allowed to accelerate again to the speed permitted for his train. The permissible speed for the D 203 on that day was 130 km / h, as the train's braking weight was too low , making it necessary to reduce the originally intended speed of 140 km / h. The permissible line speed between Hürth-Kalscheuren and Brühl is 160 km / h on both tracks.

One kilometer before the entry signal for the Brühl train station, the entry signal Vr 0 (expect stop). The driver confirmed the recognition of this distant signal and braked the train. When he approached the entry signal, it remained at Hp 0 (stop). After the dispatcher had set all the switches in Brühl station accordingly and blocked the chain of switches , she allowed entry into Brühl station with a substitute signal, since, as described above, no route was stored for this route and it was therefore not possible to set the entry signal to run.

The driver drove into the Brühl freight yard section of the station at 40 km / h in accordance with the rules, and then after about one kilometer in the height of the construction site area first accelerated to 90 km / h and then further to 120 km / h, although he had to do 40 km / h should have been maintained until the next main signal.

The train derailed about two kilometers after the replacement signal at 12:13 a.m. at turnout 48 in the Brühl passenger station, which was supposed to lead it from track 2 to track 3, at a speed of 122 km / h. In the branching position, the switch could be driven on at a speed of up to 40 km / h (according to the basic form of the switch , it should have been 50 km / h).

Then the front part of the train drove over an embankment and past a group of thick-trunked trees. Only the locomotive crushed the wall of one of the nearby family houses. Some of the following wagons were swept away and destroyed, others stood across the station and were pressed against the pillar of the platform roof. Of the 201 passengers on the train, nine died in the accident and 149 others were injured.

The accident affected the 84 t locomotive and nine four-axle cars. The front five (or six) were colored red and white, the next two cars dark green. The third and fourth cars buckled in the middle by about 45 ° when they hit the pillar of the roof of the platform in front of which the switch had deflected the train to the left. The 5th car came to a standstill, tipped to the left on its side, after it had advanced to the level of the 2nd car. Four cars were left a few meters from the houses. Only the last car remained on or in the track.

At least some of the wagons were cut up by flame cutting in the gardens and craned piece by piece with mobile cranes, which sometimes reached over the roofs of the houses. Heavy iron plates were laid for the locomotive in order to be the last - around the 6th day - to be pulled back towards the track.

Rescue and recovery measures

Rescue operations

The first helpers at the scene of the accident were the residents of the street Am Inselweiher , located directly on the railway line , who had been woken up by the accident. Above all, they helped the uninjured or only slightly injured travelers who, roused from their sleep, wandered around in the dark. Just five minutes after the accident, the first emergency services from the local volunteer fire brigade were on site and began to rescue and care for the injured passengers, including the slightly injured driver, who was shocked to the psychiatric department of the Marienhospital in Euskirchen .

The emergency doctor in charge of the Erftkreis at the time reached the scene of the accident at 12:28 a.m., about fifteen minutes after the derailment. Under his leadership, the Brauhaus am Schloss train station restaurant was set up as a provisional collection point for injured persons for first aid. Immediately after the accident, around 20 doctors, some of them alerted emergency doctors from the region and some doctors from Brühl, came to the scene of the accident. By the afternoon of the day of the accident, around 200 fire fighters and 300 police officers were on duty, plus another 70 helpers from the THW, who primarily ensured the urgently needed lighting and the power supply. There was no snow, but it was difficult for two to move the stretchers. 13- and 14-year-old members of a youth group of an aid organization helped four in an emergency with carrying, but were released after a short time with consideration of their young age.

The emergency services benefited from the fact that an exercise with a similar scenario had been carried out around a year and a half before the accident, and the emergency services could fall back on its experience. The rescue work was routine despite the confusing situation. The problem was that the approximately 300 passengers came from 15 different countries, mainly England , Japan and New Zealand , which made communication with the injured difficult. In addition, it was still unclear for a long time how many of the 22 missing passengers had continued their way on their own. The fear of finding more fatalities in the destroyed wagons, however, did not come true.

Many of the victims were trapped in the cars , so the rescue work was slow. The wagons first had to be carefully lifted to reach the injured, some of whom were trapped for several hours. The last seriously injured were freed from the rubble around two and a half hours after the accident. The last dead could only be recovered the next day after the wagons could be lifted.

A total of around 850 rescue workers were on duty. Nine passengers lost their lives, ten people suffered very serious, 42 people serious and 44 people suffered minor injuries. Leg amputations occurred. The train driver was not physically injured, but suffered a severe psychological shock. Several fatalities occurred in the following car and one of those cars that hit the pillar of the platform roof. No resident, including those in the damaged house, was injured.

Since many of those who had not been injured went away with their luggage and traveled on, the exact number of fellow travelers could not be determined.

Salvage

A replacement has been in use since December 4, 2002 under the same number as the locomotive in the accident . This picture shows the locomotive in front of an InterCity near Linz on the Rhine .

After the injured had been rescued, the wrecked wagons and the locomotive began to be recovered in order to make the busy route accessible again. The salvage of the wagons lasted until Tuesday, February 8, the salvage of the 84-tonne locomotive, which had bored into the wall of an adjacent house, was more difficult: Initial plans to dismantle the locomotive on site were discarded; Instead, the gardens were cleared and fixed with steel plates so that the locomotive could be pulled out with two cranes. The rescue operations attracted many bystanders on Sunday, February 6, who had to be prevented by the police from entering the scene of the accident. Overall, the recovery dragged on until Thursday, February 10th. Although the affected house could be stabilized, it later had to be demolished and rebuilt.

At the time of the accident, the locomotive 101 092 I (serial number 33202-1998) , which had been in service since June 10, 1998, had been in service with the DB for around 20 months. The machine was dismantled, the frame and the locomotive body were scrapped. At the end of May 2001, the DB decided to rebuild the locomotive. Some technical components from the original locomotive could still be used in 101 092 II . The vehicle has been in scheduled use since December 4, 2002.

The Dutch couchette car 51 84 50-30 003-4, a DB type Bcm 246 wagon acquired by the DB in 1994 , was completely destroyed and replaced by an identical vehicle from the DB stock that was due to be parked at the time.

Public concern

On the Monday after the accident, the then Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wolfgang Clement , ordered nationwide mourning flags. Next to him, the railway chief Hartmut Mehdorn , the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and representatives of the two major churches in Germany expressed their condolences to the victims and their families.

On February 13, one week after the accident, a memorial service was held in the parish church of St. Margareta in Brühl. Many victims and relatives attended this service. In addition to railway chief Mehdorn, the then Federal President Johannes Rau , the Prime Minister Wolfgang Clement and the then Federal Transport Minister Reinhard Klektiven were among those present.

Work-up and reactions

Investigation by the Federal Railway Authority

As usual in such cases, the Federal Railway Authority started investigating the cause shortly after the accident. In the course of the investigation, in addition to the well-known factual situation, well documented by the electronic trip registration in the locomotive , the training of the train driver and the safety technology of the railway were particularly criticized.

It turned out that the train driver at Deutsche Bahn had completed his training as a train driver without success. After moving to the ports and goods traffic in Cologne , he was able to successfully complete his training as a train driver in 1998, where he was first employed as a mainline train driver, later as a train driver with sporadic journeys on regional routes. In 1999 it was taken over by Deutsche Bahn AG without re-examination. A one-week training course was certified, but it turned out that he had carried out activities in the workshop instead. In the final report of April 20, 2000, the training of the train driver was described as sufficient regardless of this discrepancy, since the training of the Cologne ports and freight traffic was carried out according to the rules of the Deutsche Bahn.

Furthermore, the Federal Railway Authority found that the operating and construction instructions and the list of speed limit stops contained several errors. This could have had a favorable effect on the driver's decision to accelerate the train further. According to the Federal Railway Authority, the signaling at the accident site was carried out correctly.

In addition, it was found that the train radio was disrupted, so that the train driver could not provide the intended information about the intended route guidance by the dispatcher.

Federal politics

On February 16, 2000, the Bundestag Committee for Transport, Building and Housing held an initial discussion on the subject, to which the then Chairman of the Board of Management of the Deutsche Bahn, Hartmut Mehdorn , and Hans-Heinrich Grauf (as a representative of the Federal Railway Authority) were invited. It was agreed to wait for the investigation report first.

After the final report was completed by the Federal Railway Authority on April 20, 2000, it was not distributed to the committee members for reasons of data protection. On July 11, 2000, the public prosecutor in Cologne announced that it had no objection to forwarding the report to the German Bundestag. Nevertheless this did not take place; instead, a four-page summary was issued.

Legal processing

At the beginning of 2001, the Cologne public prosecutor brought a lawsuit against four DB employees. They were charged with negligent bodily harm in 149 cases. In addition to the driver, the employee responsible for the incorrect speed entry (120 instead of 40 km / h) and two employees who were responsible for the construction and operating instructions were charged. The investigations against the responsible dispatcher and an operations manager were set against it.

In the process, the driver made use of his right to refuse to testify , but a controversial tape was played that was made during a conversation with the DB emergency manager on site the night of the accident. The driver had a twelve-page letter read out in which he described his point of view and apologized to the victims. From his point of view, the signaling together with the list of slow driving positions clearly allowed a speed of 120 km / h.

Of the other defendants, the 47-year-old construction coordinator commented on the allegations. He stated that the unclear and therefore dangerous signaling had already been addressed at a meeting when the construction site was being planned, but had not been dealt with further. On the final day of the trial, the defendants shared a statement to express their condolences to the victims and their families.

The criminal proceedings against the driver and three other employees of Deutsche Bahn were discontinued on October 25, 2001 at the Cologne Regional Court after 23 days of trial because of minor guilt. The defendants had to pay fines between DM 7,000 and DM 20,000 for charitable purposes. The driver was only to blame for a momentary failure as part of a misinterpretation, the other defendants, who were accused of confusing operating instructions, objectively observed the rules, but did not recognize the dangers.

Effect in the media

Just over a year and a half after the ICE accident in Eschede , in which 101 people died, another serious train accident had occurred. The images of the crashed locomotive in the front yard of a house went through the media for days. A debate developed about the training and working conditions of the train drivers, because at the time of the accident, as part of the restructuring measures of Deutsche Bahn AG, many train drivers were dismissed and the workload of the remaining train drivers increased sharply. The debate was further fueled when the investigation report revealed deficiencies in the training of the driver. The question also arose whether savings in the course of the 1994 rail reform could have an impact on rail safety.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eifel railways: news. In: eifelbahn.de. Accessed March 31, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Federal Railway Office: Accident Investigation Report of April 20, 2000, p. 17 ff
  3. ↑ Federal Railway Office: Accident Investigation Report of April 20, 2000, p. 41
  4. ^ Federal Railway Office: Accident investigation report of April 20, 2000, p. 64
  5. ↑ Engine driver only had short training: So far, nine dead in train accident in Brühl. In: rp-online.de. February 6, 2000, accessed March 31, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Heinz-Albert Brüne: It ran like clockwork. Collection of press articles by the DRK Erftkreis ( memento of April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) On: Collection of press articles by the DRK Erftkreis ( memento of April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). February 22, 2010, 4 p.m.
  7. ↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger from February 7, 2000 Collection of press articles by the DRK Erftkreis ( Memento from April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) On: Collection of press articles by the DRK Erftkreis ( Memento from April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). February 22, 2010, 4 p.m.
  8. ↑ Gerd Böhmer: Locomotive list of the BR 101 on: www.gerdboehmer-berlinereisenbahnarchiv.de. June 15, 2008, 6:00 a.m.
  9. ↑ News update shortly . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 7/2001, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 292 f.
  10. ↑ Risk was known before the Brühl train accident , welt.de, July 3, 2001
  11. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau, November 11, 2000, The Brühl railway accident, the question of guilt and the secrecy surrounding the investigation report / An analysis by Winfried Wolf [1] On: www. http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~umaschek/bruehl_presse.htm . February 2, 2010, 8:00 p.m.
  12. ^ Federal Railway Office: Accident Investigation Report of April 20, 2000, p. 50 ff.
  13. ^ Federal Railway Authority: Accident Investigation Report of April 20, 2000, p. 70
  14. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau, October 11, 2000, The Brühl railway accident, the question of guilt and the secrecy surrounding the investigation report / an analysis by Winfried Wolf [2] at: www. http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~umaschek/bruehl_presse.htm . February 2, 2010, 8:00 p.m.
  15. ↑ Report of the indictment after the Brühl train accident . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 3/2001, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 101.
  16. ↑ Train accident: train drivers should not have been hired. In: RP Online. June 19, 2001, Retrieved April 8, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Brühl train accident: the train driver comments by letter. In: RP Online. June 1, 2001, accessed July 21, 2013 .
  18. ↑ Defendant knew concern for safety. In: RP Online. July 2, 2001, archived from the original on November 29, 2015 ; Retrieved October 6, 2010 .
  19. ↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger from February 8, 2000 (Internet) Collection of press articles at www.eifelbahn.de On: http://www.eifelbahn.de/news/bruehl.htm#04 February 22, 2010, 4:00 p.m.

Web links

See also

Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 47 "  N , 6 ° 54 ′ 45"  E