Background
Bargum is a municipality of just 625 people (as of December 2020) in the far north of Germany, located 33km/21mi west of Flensburg and 180km/112mi north of Bremen (both measurements in linear distance).
The municipality’s main town is passed on its western edge by the Marsh Railway (named after the local landscape), a 211km/131mi mostly double-track partially electrified main line connecting Elmshorn (just north of Hamburg) with Westerland on the island of Sylt (reached via the Hindenburg Dam), with a branch line going to Tønder in Denmark. Opened in sections between 1845 and 1927 (when Sylt was connected by the Hindenburg Dam) the Marsh Railway is one of Germany’s oldest railway lines but also still one of the most profitable ones, mainly due to the connection to Sylt, which otherwise would need visitors to travel via Ferry from Rømø in Denmark. Some sections of the railway line are built for speeds of up to 140kph/87mph, while others allow barely more than half of that. The Marsh Railway is used for everything from freight trains and regional passenger service to long distance intercity trains going as far south as Frankfurt, as well as the DB’s last remaining accompanied car train service (ACT) connecting Sylt and Hamburg. At the time of the accident the DB (German national railway) provided the freight and long distance services as well as the ACT-trains, while regional services were largely provided by the Nord-Ostsee-Bahn (North- and Baltic Sea Railway, or NOB for short), a private rail service provider owned by the French Transdev-company.
The train involved
DPN 81817 was a regional passenger train from Westerland (Sylt) via Niebüll to Hamburg-Altona provided by the NOB. As usual southbound trains ran with a leading control car and the locomotive pushing from the rear of the train. The NOB uses exclusively diesel powered locomotives and multiple units, in this case the DE 2000–01. The DE 2000–01 is one of four four-axle Siemens ER20 “Eurorunner ”diesel-electric locomotives in service with the NOB at the time, entering service in January 2006. Powered by a V16 diesel engine producing 1600kw/2145hp the ER20 can reach 140kph/87mph despite weighting 80 metric tons at 19.27m/63ft in length.
On the day of the accident the train consisted of six Bombardier “Married pair” passenger cars, a single-level model introduced in 2005. The cars are permanently coupled into pairs of two, with only every second car carrying the technological installations for electricity, heating and air conditioning for its pair. This reduces the weight and complexity (and thus maintenance cost), but also means the pairs can’t be separated outside the maintenance yard. Each car runs on 4 axles and weights 38–42 metric tons (the control cars are the heaviest, the second class passenger car without its own A/C and power installations the lightest) at 27.3m/90ft in length. A control car offers 78 seats, a middle car 114 or 123 seats (depending on whether or not it holds the technological installations and a bathroom), while the locomotive-side end car holds 46 second class and 23 first class seats along with a small office for the conductor. The end cars’ main feature is the presence of conventional screw-type couplers on one end to connect to a locomotive, in contrast to the specialty couplers between the cars. The train is equipped with a data-logger, recording various parameters similar to an airplane’s black box.
The accident
On the 13th of January 2012 at approximately 5:30pm DPN 81817 from Westerland to Hamburg-Altona is approaching the town of Bargum at approximately 130kph/81mph. Bargum doesn’t have a train station, relying on Langenhorn station 2km/1.25mi to the south (linear distance). The weather is good, but due to the early date in the year it’s already dark as the train reaches the town of Bargum. The train driver, remotely controlling the locomotive from the leading control car (D-NOB 55 80 80-75007-5) is fully certified for the route and train used. Unbeknownst to anyone on board a 28-head cattle-herd escaped its nearby stable and entered the adjacent railroad tracks just 70m/230ft away, slowly moving south. As the train leaves Bargum behind it the driver suddenly spots the herd in his path and triggers an emergency stop at 125kph/77.7mph. At 5:37:26 the data-logger registers air pressure dropping below 2.2 bar (less than half the operational pressure, indicating an emergency stop being initiated) and the train starts slowing down. But it’s too late, the darkness caused the driver to spot the herd only seconds before impact. 120m/394ft after initiating the emergency stop the train strikes the first cows at 105kph/65mph, derailing the control car (marked by the data logger’s recording cutting off).
The impact lifted the control car out of the track and caused it to fall over to the right, tearing off the coupler to its partner-car. As it went off the tracks the nose of the control car dug into the soft agricultural soil and spun around 180° before coming to a rest on a ditch parallel to the tracks. The following partner-car derailed also and came to a rest diagonally across its track while ripping off the third car, which remained on track. The driver and 3 of his passengers are injured in the accident, with a 38 years old passenger being the sole casualty on the train. 23 passengers are treated on site and released. Half the herd dies in the accident also.
Aftermath
Responders from the surrounding towns, including volunteer firefighters, reach the site of the accident within minutes. Most of the passengers already left the train, with no overhead wire that could be torn it’s fairly safe to leave the train cars on the site away from the other track. Around 160 people are involved in the rescue and recovery effort, most passengers are taken to nearby Niebüll and spend the night at various hotels there. While most responders work their way through the train or look for additional survivors that might have wandered off into the night the surviving cattle are rounded up and returned to their owner. Later the next day the THW (German federal agency for technical relief) arrives to stabilize the adjacent dirt track for heavy vehicles, hoping to keep the needed trucks and cranes from just sinking into the muddy soil. Late in the day two 100 metric ton mobile cranes are brought in and lift the two derailed train cars onto flatbed trucks while the rest of the train, which suffered minor damage, leaves under its own power. The train cars are taken to the NOB’s maintenance yard in the city of Husum to be examined. An initial fear that further victims could be found underneath the rolled over control car luckily ends up not coming true.
Investigators retraced the route the cattle too until the collision and ended up at the stable of a 61 years old local farmer. He had accepted to house the herd for a friend as he had unused capacities in his stables, and the herd had arrived only hours before the accident. During questioning by the police the farmer admitted that he left the stable door open, something not too uncommon, as it provides daylight and ventilation, but that a feeding grate (a railing separating the animals from the center aisle that they could stick their heads through to eat) was meant to keep the cattle safely inside the stable.
Examination of the feeding grate revealed that it had apparently been modified, causing selected segments to no longer properly attach to the end-post when the grating was closed. According to the investigation this allowed the cattle to nudge it open and escape from the stable. With this alleged modification being blamed as the cause of the accident the farmer saw himself charged with negligent manslaughter and dangerous interference with rail traffic. Originally he had simply been sent a penal order for six months of probation, but since the farmer raised an objection through his lawyer he saw himself put on trial in early November 2012. In court the farmer expressed his sadness and grief over the accident, especially the death of the passenger, but insisted that his grating had not been faulty. He explained that he hadn’t altered the grating or its attachment to the posts but had it replaced 20 years ago, while keeping the same posts to attach it to. He further explained that it was subjected to examinations by the agricultural trade association every five years, with no fault ever found. If he was to be found guilty the farmer would face almost 3 million Euros/3.5 million USD in damages including the cost of the repairs to the train, a sum that would ruin him as his insurance would not cover it. The trial ended up dragging on for over a year, holding various opposing evaluations of the stable and even a restart after the judge was replaced (for unknown reasons). There is no public record of a sentence being handed down, so it has to be assumed that the sole guilt wasn’t sufficiently proven and the farmer was spared having to foot the bill for all the damages.
The train cars were repaired by Bombardier and returned to service with the NOB, becoming property of the DB when the NOB ceased operations on the Marsh Railway in December 2016. Bombardier failed to sell the married pair cars to any other railway provider before selling its railway division to Alstom in 2021, making the 45 pairs the only ones in existence. They are still in use today, running with barely changed livery (white-blue-turquoise instead of white-blue-yellow) under the DB’s “Nah.SH” regional traffic brand.
After the accident the argument about fencing in railway lines in Germany briefly flared up, a discussion started after the 2008 accident in the Landrücken Tunnel where an ICE had derailed after striking a flock of sheep. But this was quickly shot down, as it was by far not worth the cost and drawbacks, not then and even less now, including older main lines and branch lines. The Marsh Railway remains a highly important railway line in Germany and will be vital for the federal state of Schleswig Holstein for the foreseeable future despite its drawbacks (no electrification, some sections are only single-track). There have been a handful of accidents with livestock since this one, something treated as unavoidable for a railway line crossing through almost nothing but farmland. However, no one has died in one of those accidents since 2012.
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