Nine dead, 50 seriously injured after head-on train crash in Bavaria, Germany

[Commander Wallace]

Two trains collided earlier this morning Southeast of Bavaria. Altogether, an estimated 100-150 people were injured, 50 of them seriously in addition to the 9 dead at the time of this writing.


Quote : The crash occurred shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday local time near the spa town of Bad Aibling, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of the Bavarian capital of Munich.




It is estimated the 2 trains were traveling at 62 MPH or 100 KPH at the moment of impact. 2 of the 3 data recorders have been recovered and it's expected the 3rd will be recovered in short order. In an effort to determine the cause of the accident, Investigators are focusing their efforts on technical issues, human error and other causes.

Quote : The crash occurred on the Mangfall Valley Railway, a single-track regional rail line between the towns of Rosenheim and Holzkirchen, according to train company Meridian.
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"This is a difficult hour for the railways in Germany," said German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, describing the crash as "one of the biggest we have had for years."


http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/europe...ain-collision/


Hopefully, our German Subsim members and their familes are safe.


Condolences to those lost and best wishes for the recovery of those injured.

[JasonKR]

May each and every one of the 50 recover.

[I'mOnABoat]

And here I thought trains were the safer way to go!

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by I'mOnABoat

And here I thought trains were the safer way to go!

They are compared to all other means of transportation.

[Oberon]

To say that something has gone terribly wrong would obviously be a drastic understatement, head on collisions are relatively rare in the railways of the western world, when there are crashes they're usually either into the rear of a preceding train or occasionally into another train which is changing lines in front (or of course, derailment due to poor track or train maintenance).
The fact that this was a single line as well only adds to the rarity of such a thing happening, generally speaking the safety systems of European trains are supposed to stop two trains being on the same track at the same time.
So either it was human negligence caused by overriding or ignoring safety systems (the PZB I believe it's called), or a failure of the safety systems that are supposed to stop this.

[August]

Originally Posted by JasonKR

May each and every one of the 50 recover.

Amen.

[Jimbuna]

Officials say they assume both train drivers had no visual contact before the crash as the site is on a bend - and therefore crashed into each other largely without braking.
The stretch of line had an automatic braking system designed to halt any train that passed a stop signal. It is not yet known why this failed to stop the crash but two of the three data recorders or "black boxes" on board the trains have been recovered so they should have a clearer indication of what went wrong soon.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The stretch of line had an automatic braking system designed to halt any train that passed a stop signal. It is not yet known why this failed to stop the crash but two of the three data recorders or "black boxes" on board the trains have been recovered so they should have a clearer indication of what went wrong soon.

Yeah, that's the PZB system, it's a bit like the TPWS in the UK in that there's a magnet near the signals that operates on varying frequencies depending on the aspect of the signal, if the signal is red and the train approaches it too fast or tries to go past it it should automatically trip the brakes (the London Underground has a similar but more manual system in which a small lever comes out when a signal is red and if the train passes it, it hits the tripcock on the train and triggers the brakes). Likewise if the signal is at yellow or whatever the German equivilient is, there's automatically a speed restriction in place and if the train goes past or approaches the signal at a higher speed the brakes are applied.

That being said, PZB is not infallable, like our TPWS it can be overridden (a major disaster with a steam locomotive was narrowly averted the other year when a steam tour operator isolated the TPWS in the steam locomotive causing it to pass a signal at danger and come to a stop fouling a busy main line junction) but there are procedures in place that are meant to prevent this from happening.

There had been at least one major accident with the PZB90 in place - on 26 June 2000 an S-Bahn train left Hannover-Langenhagen station for a single-track section with an oncoming train. The PZB halted the train but the driver released the train ("Freitaste") without double-checking with the train director. The investigative report notes that there had been 22 similar recorded occurrences until that time when a driver related the PZB halt to a different cause than having overrun a main signal - the report concludes that the operations manual should be changed in that double-checking with train director should not only be required on a main signal overrun but explicitly on all PZB-related stops.

So how one of these trains (most likely the one which had just left Kolbormoor station which is, I believe, double tracked so would make a natural passing place) managed to drive through a red light and onto a single track section with another train coming towards it does lean heavily towards a signalling failure, as a driver leaving a station would have had more time to see the red signal and thus would have been less likely to pass it.
If so, it will be the first time that the PZB system has failed causing a fatal accident which was not directly linked to being overridden or altered by the driver.

Still, on the upside at least this was modern rolling stock, with better design and safety features than old stock, and with recording devices on board which will give investigators an idea of what happened. No consolation to the relatives of the dead or injured though, sadly.

[Skybird]

Media report that the investigating police now is very strongly focussed on human error made by a traffic regulator. All tracks seem to lead there.