Background
Peine is a city of 49990 people (as of December 2019) in central Germany, located 41km/25.5mi west-southwest of Wolfsburg and 33km/20.5km east of Hanover (both distances measured in linear distance).
The city of Peine is located on the Hanover-Brunswick railway, a double-track (a short section has three tracks) electrified main line opened in 1844. The railway line is one of the oldest in Germany, and still an important east-west corridor for passenger and freight services. Among the trains using it are high speed intercity trains but also heavy ore trains going from Hamburg’s harbor in the north of Germany to Salzgitter’s steel factories, Germany’s heaviest regular trains at 6000 metric tons.
The trains involved
Running from Quedlinburg to Meppen (westbound) was DSG 93274, a freight train by the MWB (an at the time private local rail service provider) consisting of 49 model Fccpps two-axle ballast cars rented from Dutch Voestalpine Railpro BV. Each of these cars weights 11 metric tons empty at 9.64m/31.4ft long and can load 28.2 metric tons.
The cars have two-part wheels with steel tires which are regularly checked and replaced. To spot undesired slipping of the tires on the wheels all of the wheels are fitted with position indicators, white lines going from the wheel across the tire. If the tire starts to move independently from the wheel a separation in the white line alerts maintenance crews to this.
The train was pulled by two locomotives, but only the forward one is on record. For the train the MWB had rented SBB RE 421 388, a Swiss freight-locomotive specifically adapted for service in Germany. Converted from the standard SBB RE 4/4 II (later called the RE 420) in the early 2000s the 421 is a four axle electric locomotive weighting 85 metric tons at 15.52m/51ft long and can reach 140kph/87mph, although in Germany the speed is limited to 120kph/75mph. Including the locomotives the train had a weight of 2054 metric tons.
Travelling in the opposite direction was RE (Regional Express) 14019 from Rheine to Brunswick. The train consisted of 5 fourth generation bilevel passenger cars, each weighting 52 metric tons empty at 26.8m/88ft long and offering around 135 seats (full second class has 139 seats, the control car and the partial first class car a few less).
The train was pulled by DB (German national railway) Series 111 090–7, a four-axle electric locomotive introduced in 1975 mostly for regional traffic. Weighting 83 metric tons at 16.75m/55ft long the Series 111 reaches 160kph/99mph, plenty for the demands of regional trains especially at the time of it’s introduction.
The accident
At 10:35pm on the 16th of June 2010 DSG 9374 is passing westbound through Brunswick (“Braunschweig” in German) main station, approximately 27km/17mi down the track from what will be the site of the accident. A railway employee shunting a locomotive sees the freight train go past and spots sparks flying off a wheel in the forward section of the train, from somewhere “down by the wheels” on the right hand side. He tells a signal box employee, who notifies the dispatcher in charge of the freight train. The dispatcher decides to better be safe than sorry, and informs the driver that he will not get permission to leave Brunswick but will have to stop and examine the train ahead of the exit-signal. Stopping at 10:39 the driver spends 19 minutes examining the brakes in the forward section of the train, suspecting a faulty brake to have “locked” a wheel, keeping it from spinning. Finding nothing, he eventually gets permission to depart again. The train proceeds to pass the town of Vechelde at 11:12pm, with the local dispatcher also seeing sparks from the right side wheel-area in the forward section of the train. He attempts twice to contact the driver via radio, but is unsuccessful both times. Judging from his following conversation with his colleague at Peine main station he blames this on the Swiss locomotive, which makes no sense as the radio-systems are compatible/identical. Peine’s dispatcher decides to use a special sensor-track at the town of Siersse (“Sierße”), 10km/6.2mi from the site, to check the train’s brake-temperatures. With the train passing the sensors without triggering an alarm he decides to let the train proceed to the town of Hämelerwald, located on the other side of Peine, to visually check the train himself as it passes the station. The train will not make it there.
At the same time RE 14019 is approaching Peine from the west, carrying just 65 passengers and two crew members. The driver has started to slow down to stop at Peine station, only doing approximately 110kph/68mph as he approaches the western edge of the city. Just a few kilometers west of the main station the Brandtner-family and the Schneider-family enjoy the evenings in their two-family house. Their backyards are right up against the train tracks, a noise protection wall reduces the noise a little bit. The kids have spent the afternoon playing in a wooden castle and around a pool, but by now the neighborhood has quieted down a bit.
At 11:22pm the freight train passes Peine’s signal box, and the dispatcher sees a lot of sparks emitting from the same area his coworkers saw sparks come from. He orders his assistant to tell the dispatcher at Hämelerwald to stop the train, and goes to radio the driver of the freight train. What he doesn’t know: It’s not the brakes. A tire on the forward axle of the tenth car has come loose and is barely holding onto the wheel, moving in all directions as the train car more or less drags it along. Passing a set of points for oncoming trains while exiting Peine station the forward axle of the tenth car derails, bouncing briefly around the track before running relatively parallel to the track, but offset to the right. As the train starts to leave Peine the tenth car starts to angle a little, turning it’s front to the right.Here, barely outside the station, a buffer stop marks the end of what used to be a siding, abandoned years ago and disconnected.
Car 10 strikes the buffer stop at speed, being swung around by the impact. Falling over as it turns fully sideways car 10 forces car 11 into the oncoming track, which in turn derails cars 12 and 13. They remain largely upright and in their track, but still exert enough forces on cars 14 and 15 for those to lean into the space reserved for the oncoming train. Cars 16 and 17 derail and sharply lean right, while car 18 derails but remains upright. At the same time the dispatcher establishes radio contact with the freight train’s driver, just as the signal box notes a signal error. This, unknown to the dispatcher, is caused by the derailing cars claiming the oncoming track, which is supposed to be reserved for the RE. A second later the driver notes a mysterious loss in pneumatic pressure auto-stopping his train, he doesn’t know that his train tore behind car 9, causing the emergency stop being initiated.
At the same time as the freight train grinds to a stop the RE starts to pass it, the recording of the radio call even contains the noise of the passing locomotive as the freight train stops. At 11:24pm the RE passes the entrance-signal to Peine station at 98kph/61mph, the signal error comes too late to stop it. Barely a second after passing the signal the locomotive hits the eleventh freight car. The impact lifts the locomotive out of the track, deflecting it to the right as it is thrown onto it’s side. Falling off the embankment the locomotive pulls it’s train along, derailing the first two cars. The out of control train breaks through the noise protection wall, enters two backyards and destroys the play castle as it digs itself into the soil. 90m/295ft past the point of impact the locomotive comes to a stop in the bushes, only a few meters away from the massive concrete overpass. Just a meters more, maybe if it had struck car 12 rather than 11, and the driver would’ve been dead, crushed against the massive bridge. As it is, 19 people suffer minor injuries, while the driver survives with severe injuries. The driver of the freight train is unharmed, he’s not even aware that anything happened until several minutes after the accident. He’s later seen by witnesses running around the wreckage, willing but unable to help the passengers.
Aftermath
Inside the house Mrs. Schneider hears a loud, dull thud seemingly end the of wooshing of a passing train, sees flashes outside the window. She originally suspects a thunderstorm. Looking out the window she’s greeted by a massive bright red rectangle sitting across her backyard, pushing the sorry remains of her kids’ play castle aside. A train has, by all means, appeared in her backyard, the flashes she saw are from the torn overhead wires causing sparks as they touch the train cars.
Mrs. Brandtner is startled by the train falling into the backyard also, while she goes to call the emergency services her nephew grabs a hammer and runs out to help. He can hear people move around inside the train, hears cries for help. But his hammer doesn’t break through the windows. Eventually a passenger helps him pry a door open, he hands the hammer inside. Finally passengers can punch windows out of the fallen train cars, with the emergency hammers on board and the one handed in, and climb out of the destroyed train. Other passengers call the emergency services from inside the train, six minutes after the accident blue light fills the adjacent streets as firefighters, police officers and ambulances start arriving. At the same time some residents make their way through the destroyed garden and some bushes to the front of the locomotive. They can hear and see the driver, he survived, but the locomotive is so badly mangled that they can’t get him out. He has to wait to be cut free later during the night, being taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
While passengers in the rear cars mostly leave the train on their own those further forwards need help climbing out the windows, as the angle and damage of the cars rendered the doors inoperable. Over the course of the night 7 people are taken to the hospital, the rest is treated and released on site. Investigators are initially puzzled by what they find, how could the trains derail and collide with seemingly nothing in their path? Initially the theory is that a car fell off the bridge or something was placed on the tracks to derail the freight train, but the locomotives and forward cars are completely undamaged. It’s only several cars down the train that there is sudden carnage. The train cars are torn up and lie all over the place, out of order, and the old siding along with the buffer stop has been moved.
The day after the accident the investigators have the rear, undamaged cars towed away, and find some important evidence. Several meters down the track there are scratches on the rails and in the concrete sleepers, and the gravel has been displaced.
Going all the way back to Peine station investigators find the set of points that started the derailment, the center section clearly shows that the train cars didn’t go where they were supposed to go. Something that can only happen if something was placed in the track (not likely, as the forward section of the train was fine) or if a wheel were to come apart, meaning the axle would not stay in the straight track. It is later assumed that the loose tire on the tenth car moved left and right so much that it went the wrong way at the set of points (which divert in the opposite direction), causing the wheel to climb the rail on the right.
Further examining the abandoned and now destroyed siding investigators find a torn-off buffer and shunting ladder sitting near it. Looking through the wrecked cars they end up at car 10, missing both these parts. This proves that car 10 was the source of the derailment, as it derailed and struck the buffer stop, tearing pieces off itself on impact.
Turning their attention to car 10 investigators are shocked to find the wheel literally in two pieces, the tire is barely holding on to the wheel at all. Furthermore, the position indicators, despite being originally bright white, are so worn down that they’re barely recognizable. How the car passed recent inspections is beyond the investigator’s understanding, recordings show no flaw of any kind being found. The freight train driver can’t be blamed for the accident, the only complaint the investigators have for him is that he kept talking on the radio with the dispatcher when his train initiated an emergency stop. Had he sent a stop-order to the surrounding trains he wouldn’t have avoided the collision, but would have caused it to happen at a lower speed. It’s considered lucky that the train was preparing to stop at Peine, the deceleration let it stop ahead of the bridge after derailing. The behavior of the dispatcher at Peine was criticized more strongly, he should’ve stopped the train, which clearly displayed a significant issue. He instead chose to let it proceed, most likely unwilling to risk an unjustified delay if the cause wasn’t safety-relevant after all. The exact cause for the separation of the tire wasn’t found, the report assumes that tolerances in both parts’ production came together in a bad way, leading to a poor fitment from the start. It’s unknown why the worn markings weren’t fixed or noted, examining the train further investigators found the same sight on several of the train’s cars. No legal proceedings followed after the investigation, as no single person or exact group of people could be blamed.
The railway line was closed for a whole week after the accident, requiring trains to be diverted and needing the DB to provide busses as several regional connections were cancelled. DB 111 090 was removed from fleet lists, especially with the age of the locomotive in mind there was no point in trying to repair it or salvage parts. The DB cleared most of the Brandtner’s and Schneider’s backyard, bringing in a large crane to upright the locomotive before it was cut up on site. Two of the passenger cars were stripped for parts and scrapped also, along with 8 of the freight cars. Several of the freight cars had to be unloaded at least partially before they could be removed from the site, being too heavy to re-track with their cargo on board. The total material damage, excluding injuries/medical expenses, was estimated at around 5.4 million Euros/6.04 million USD. It’s generally agreed that the accident could’ve been much worse, due to the late hour the passenger train plowed into an empty garden, there was no flammable or otherwise dangerous cargo on either train, and the passenger train was far from fully occupied.
Just two months after the accident Railpro made negative news again when an empty ballast car of the same type derailed at the town of Falkenberg due to a tire coming loose on it’s wheel. That time, at least, no one was hurt.
Around 2013 usage of the SBB RE 421 in Germany declined, and the locomotives are largely back to service within Switzerland, except for the Zürich-München Eurocity, which they can pull the whole way rather than requiring a handover at the border. The DB series 111 is on it’s last legs, a lot of the locomotives have been put into storage (presumably used for spares before being disposed of). The very last ones in DB-services will (as it seems) be retired by 2026, leaving 5 in private hands and 1 (the 111 001) in the DB museum’s fleet. Railpro is still in operation, with the company having promised more thorough inspections to avoid another repeat of the defect. The track and gardens at the site have been repaired/rebuilt, today nothing at the site points to what happened. The siding was removed during the repairs.
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