The worst high speed train accident in the world to date, took place here near the village of Eschede in the lower Saxony region of Germany. It involved the inter city express or ICE train, named the Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, which was traveling between noon in Hamburg on the morning of 3rd of June 1998.
Having made a shed to stop at Hanover, it was about six kilometers south of the Eschede when a wheel then broke and penetrated the floor of the first carriage. A passenger noticed the large pieces of metals sticking out of the floor but instead of putting the emergency break immediately, he alerted the train conductor. This was approved a deadly decision. Although a later court case exonerated the conductor, it was following company policy by not stopping the train until he had witnessed the problem for himself.
The train then passed a couple of check switches but as it did so, the wheel didn’t pick the driver out and dislodged it causing it also to becoming vegetated in the carriage floor. As the train derailed the entire third carriage hit the supporting pillows of an overhead road bridge, which subsequently collapsed.
The power head and first three carriages made it through in more or less intact. Finally coming to rest about three kilometers down the track but the Eschede train station, the driver, unaware of what it happened behind him was informed of the accident by the station manager and went into such an extreme shock, he was unable to leave the power hit at some mass.
Still traveling with 200 kilometers an hour, the fourth carriage hurdled into the embankment killing three railway workers instantly. As it did so, the collapsing bridge fell into the rest of the trend. The car six and seven, the restaurant car, three first class cars and the rear locomotive all zig-zagged into the wall and hit the bridge. A car was found in the wreckage. It was believed that it belonged to the railway workers and been parked on the bridge before the accident.
Although most people in front of the train were unharmed, the high speed of impact meant those shoveling in the rear carriages are next to no chance of escape or being saved. There were 297 passengers on the train that day including the three railway workers, 101 killed and further 88 were seriously injured.
The investigation into the courses of the accident was conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute. An organization that voiced it concerns about metal and wheel ring failure six years before the accident. That was also revealed that Hanover’s transit authority had replaced its wheels and issued a warning about their designed folds to other users including the German federal railway.
Several fact has been over looked from their design. The design of the road over passers also concise and the replacement bridge of a newer design so that another collision will result in a complete collapse. It was also notes that rescuer has found it very difficult to get into the train and consequently all German trains now have some windows with predetermine breaking points.
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