Background
Gerersdorf is a municipality of 985 people (as of January 2020) in the northeast of Austria, consisting of 12 villages and settlements over an area of 13.67 square Kilometers/5.3 square miles. Occupying the southern part of Geresdorf’s territory is the town of Völlerndorf with just 73 citizens. The village is located right on the A1 “Westautobahn”, 94km/58mi east of Linz and 61.5km/38mi west of Vienna (both distances measured in linear distance).
The town has no train station, with the only public transport being bus lines, but the “Mariazellerbahn” (“Mariazell Railway”, named after the town of Mariazell 47km/29mi linear distance away) passes the town on it’s southern edge. Opened in 1907 the Mariazell Railway is a 91.3km/56.7mi long electrified narrow gauge railway, utilizing a track width of just 760mm (little more than half the width of regular train tracks) called the Bosnian Gauge. Using the ability of a narrow gauge railway to navigate tighter turns and require smaller dams/tunnels the Railway connects the city of Sankt Pölten with the town of Mariazell, which is a Styrian pilgrimage center. The single track route passes Völlerndorf east to west, a few Kilometers after it’s origin in Sankt Pölten. As it passes the town the route goes through a sharp left-right s-turn (east to west) and passes over the Pielach, a small river. A long straight to the west of the river allows speeds of up to 70kph/43.5mph, while the bridge itself and the sharp turns are limited to 35kph/21.7mph.
The train involved
Suffering from aging rolling stock the decision was made in 2011 to buy a new generation of trains to completely replace both aging locomotive-drawn trains and an unreliable diesel-powered multiple unit from the 1990s. Made by Stadler Rail the NÖVÖG ET is a custom-made three-car electric multiple unit developed specifically for the Mariazell Railway. The trains receive power from the overhead wire, with the Railway using a unique 6.5kv 25hz system they can only run on that railway. Nicknamed the “Himmelstreppe” (Stairway to Heaven) due to the massive change in elevation during the route each of the 9 trains weights 75 metric tons at 50.74m/166.5ft long. They can reach up to 90kph/56mph, carrying as many as 116 seated passengers in a two-class configuration with space for an additional 113 standing passengers. The interior is set up to be easily customizable, a common setup for the summer months are 94 seats, space for 121 standing passengers and 27 bicycle stands. The middle car of each train runs on two two-axle bogies, with the end-cars having one bogie each on the far end while their inner end is supported by the middle car. While most of the Mariazell Railway’s rolling stock carried red/orange and white liveries for decades the Himmelstreppe was delivered in a golden paint job with a dark gray stripe over the windows, a choice that has received split reactions from the public. The trains are slightly over-motorized for their own needs, allowing them to pull additional cars with no problem. For this purpose the Mariazell Railway bought custom panoramic cars from Stadler which are occasionally added to the back of a train.
The accident
On the 26th of June 2018 a double-traction of two Himmelstreppe-trains (ET5 leading, ET6 following) is approaching Sankt Pölten from the west with a driver, a steward and 88 passengers on board. The train has left Laubenbachmühle at 6:13am and is now, 45 minutes later, about to cross over the Pielach. A lot of the passengers are children and teenagers, using the train to commute to school. The train approaches the bridge at 75kph/46mph when the driver suffers a blackout due to severe dehydration. He regains consciousness and realizes the location of the train just as the train reaches the end of the bridge. Knowing he’s going way too fast he tries to slow down, but with seconds to spare it’s too late to stop. Despite the driver’s effort to reduce the speed to within the limit the train enters the sharp left hand turn at 62kph/39mph, almost twice the speed intended for the turn. Resistance from the bent rails slow the train down some more, but by this point there is no way to avoid an accident.
At 7:07:14am ET5 tips over and derails, tearing off ET6 as it falls over. Scraping along several overhead wire supports and damaging the bridge’s railing the train comes to a rest almost flat on it’s side halfway through the turn, severely damaged and with the pantograph torn off the roof but structurally intact. Having ET5 rip off triggers the emergency brakes on ET6. It hits the underside of ET5, scraping along the length of the other train and suffering severe damage mostly to it’s leading car before coming to a stop halfway past the fallen train. It leans to the left, being pushed by the fallen train, but doesn’t derail. 45 people are injured, 4 of which severely.
Aftermath
Among the passengers in ET5 is 18 year old Mister Schnaitt, who remains uninjured as the train falls over. He recalls an “odd motion” as the train went over the bridge, followed by a loud bang when it landed on it’s side on the edge of an adjacent field. Being a member of the local volunteer fire department he has some knowledge of what to do and, along with some other passengers, does his best to keep the situation under control and, most importantly, keep people from climbing out of the stricken train. He later says that most of the passengers were surprisingly calm for what had happened, making it easy to keep order. Another initial responder is Mister Heinsching, a farmer who was working just a few meters away and heard the derailment. Seeing people start to climb out of the fallen train he told them to go back inside, fearing they could get too close to the overhead wires. Within a few minutes responders start reaching the site of the accident, only marginally slowed down by the absence of roads near the location.14 ambulances, 6 emergency doctors and three rescue helicopters with their crews get involved in the rescue-effort, as well as two fire departments with 50 members total. But originally, all the can do is wait.
Only by 7:57am the Mariazell Railway declares the overhead wires off and secured, finally responders can approach the trains and allow passengers to exit them. By 8:20am the trains are empty. Originally responders have the uninjured passengers sit on the fallen over train to keep them in one place, creating an odd sight for arriving journalists (see video below), before arriving relatives are allowed into the site to pick them up. Any luggage left behind is taken to the local police station awaiting retrieval.
Investigators find no fault with the trains or track that could have been there before the accident, the data-loggers soon point out the cause to be excessive speed caused by the driver disregarding speed limits. The railway has a signaling-system that won’t let a train run a red signal, but between signals it’s down to the drivers to obey speed limits indicated by signs along the track. The driver is medically examined and interrogated, he recalls approaching the bridge and then the train derailing. The medical examination shows that he was severely dehydrated at the time of the accident, something he cannot disprove. He hadn’t drunk enough, causing him to lose consciousness for a few fatal seconds. Not even long enough for the dead man switch to trigger an emergency stop.
In late June the trains are re-tracked and towed away, by the second of July the track has been repaired and service can restart. ET5’s leading car and ET6’s middle car are damaged beyond repair, the remaining cars are repaired and turned into one intact three-car train. At the time Stadler’s factory was at capacity, requiring a long wait-time for the repairs/reconstruction. The Waldviertelbahn borrows a series 5090 diesel railcar (coincidentially in a near-identical paint scheme), together with another borrowed diesel train from another Austrian narrow gauge railwy (Citybahn Waidhofen) the Mariazell Railway can maintain operation during the wait/repair time.
On the 20th of March 2019 the 26 year old driver is put on trial at Sankt Pölten on charges of grossly negligent cause of bodily harm and negligent endangerment of the general public. The trial was put on hold after the first day to acquire a medical assessment, when it resumed on the 28th of August the assessment led to the decision that there was no way for him to know he was about to loose consciousness, and with that there was no criminal fault. Following the decision the public prosecutor’s office withdrew the charges, ending the trial without a sentence. In the meantime, on the thirteenth of June 2019 the repaired three-car train (numbered ET6) was returned to service, allowing the borrowed trains to be returned to their owners. The reconstruction/repair of the other 3 cars took until July 2020. The complete cost of the accident and it’s consequences, including the reconstructed train, was never made public, but was claimed to be above 10 million Euros/12.1 million USD. The repair/reconstruction of the trains alone cost around 6 million Euros/7.28 million USD.
The accident is only the third to cause harm to the crew or passengers of a train since the railway was started. It had little effect on the popularity of the railway, which sees around 540 thousand passengers per year.
Video
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