Background
Hohenthurm (note, it’s pronounced without the third H, the English th doesn’t exist in German) is a town and district of the city of Landsberg in Saxony-Anhalt in the east of Germany, and has a population of 1707 (as of 2012). The city is located on the former territory of Eastern Germany (DDR/GDR), 27km/16.75mi northwest of Leipzig and 76km/47mi south of Magdeburg (both measurements in linear distance).
Hohenthurm has a station on the Berlin-Halle Railway, a double-track electrified main line opening in its current routing in 1859. The line sees everything from regional traffic to long-distance express trains (including ICE high speed trains) and freight traffic, and was one of the railway lines used for “Interzonenzüge” (Trans-zone-trains) during the era of German separation, which were special express trains connecting West-Berlin (an isolated exclave in the GDR) with western Germany by going through the GDR’s territory. These trains ran as strictly regulated express trains following a tight schedule and had to adhere to additional rules compared to other trains. There were to be no unscheduled stops for any reason (often there were none at all on GDR territory), usually had a straight path set to head right for the border, and to keep people from jumping onto the train to defect to the west a minimum speed was to be maintained the entire time. Because a lot of the railway-lines in the GDR were in poor condition the scheduled speed was often difficult to maintain, let alone safe, so train drivers soon nicknamed the trains “Die Angst” (The fear), referring to the frightening feeling of speeding on neglected railway tracks that any sensible scheduling would have you slow down for or avoid as a whole.
The trains involved
D 345 was an express train going from Berlin-Friedrichstraße station (West Berlin) to Saarbrücken in the extreme southwest of western Germany, crossing through the GDR without any scheduled stops before reaching the inner-German border. The train carried 108 passengers and was to leave the GDR no more than 4 hours after entering it. Pulling the train was DR (Deutsche Reichsbahn, the GDR’s national railway, not to be confused with the DR that existed from 1920 to 1945) series 250 207, a six-axle electric locomotive made in the GDR between 1977 and 1984 to pull heavy freight or express trains. The locomotives, whose boxy design got them nicknamed “Elektrocontainer” (“Electric container”) due to their similarity with a shipping container, weight 123 metric tons at 19.6m /64ft in length and can reach 125kph/78mph thanks to their six motors putting out a combined 5400kw/7241hp.
P 7523 was a regional passenger train from Bitterfeld to Halle (Saale), consisting of DR 250 017, which was pushing the train from the rear at the time of the accident, an unknown series 250 locomotive at the head of the train and a group of so-called “Rekowagen”, four-axle passenger cars that had been introduced before the second world war and then integrated into the DR’s fleet in 1967 as the series Bghw after being restored/modernized. Each four-axle Rekowagen (two- and three-axle versions existed also) measures 18.7m/61ft in length, offering 64 seats in a second class open space interior inside a steel chassis. Receiving new brakes and bogies/wheelsets they were able to reach up to 140kph/87mph, but their brakes were only designed for 120kph/74mph. The interior walls were made of Sprelacart, a mixture of wood and synthetic resin. The train was often used by shift-workers to get home, leading to the connection being nicknamed the “Schichterzug” (“shift worker train”).
The accident
On the 29th of February at approximately 2:45pm Interzonenzug D 354 is racing through the GDR on its way towards Frankfurt, from where it will continue to Saarbrücken on the other side of Germany. The 108 passengers on board have all gotten on the train in West-Berlin, a simple ID-check at the border will suffice as far as customs at the inner-German border are concerned. Despite the heavy fog covering the area on the day of the accident the driver is putting priority on punctuality, racing down the tracks at 120kph/74mph as soon as the track somewhat allows it. Most trains in the area have been cancelled due to the poor visibility, but a few, including D 354, are still running. As the driver leaves Berlin behind his superior’s words echo around his head: There are no stops along the way through the GDR, he has to pass right through all stations and reach the border within 4 hours. He should not stop no matter what, his train has priority. With those words in mind the driver disregards 3 red signals along his path, speeding right past them. There was a system installed on the railway that would stop a train after a red signal is run, but the locomotive pulling the Interzonenzug didn’t have its part of the system installed so the system couldn’t stop it. As he approaches Hohenthurm station he suddenly sees the rear lights of another locomotive at the platform, right in his path. The driver initiates an emergency stop, hopelessly too late to stop his heavy train in time.
Up ahead at Hohenthurm station Mister Kaaden, a vocational school teacher, has just reached his destination aboard P 7523 and is happy to only be a few meters from his home after a day’s work. He’s sitting in the last car, right in front of the locomotive pushing the train along its route. Hohenthurm has a steam boiler factory, hundreds of workers are on the platform waiting for their trains to get home. As his train stops right on time at 3pm Mister Kaaden gets up and steps off the train, starting to make his way down the platform. Suddenly, just seconds after he left the train car, a deafening crash rocks the station. Mister Kaaden later says that he thought a plane had crashed into the small town, or maybe a bomb had exploded nearby. In reality, just a few meters behind him, the Interzonenzug crashed into the near-stationary P 7523 at high speed (sources range from 40kph/25mph to 100kph/62mph) just as it started to pull out of the station. The impact of the heavy express train pushed the passenger train’s locomotive through the rear half of the first passenger car, obliterating the interior. Mister Kaaden is uninjured by a matter of seconds, but aboard the train 10 passengers die in the collision with a total of 46 more passengers from either train being injured.
Aftermath
The first responders on site come from the town’s volunteer fire department, with professional responders taking a few more minutes to arrive. Because of an Interzonenzug being involved the Stasi (the GDR’s Secret Police, which wasn’t secret at all) soon shows up also. Leading the rescue effort at that time is Mister Asperger, a local emergency doctor. He has never seen anything like this, something that also goes for most of the other responders. As they move down the regional train from the leading end they can’t help a lot of the passengers, having to wait for the fire department to help them gain access to the severely damaged train. Gradually responders start to climb the wreckage with ladders provided by the firefighters, try to get to the trapped survivors. They cannot use torches to cut through the twisted metal, the risk of setting the Rekowagen’s interior paneling ablaze is too high. Normal hand-saws have to suffice, prolonging the rescue-effort significantly.
Asperger knows that people aboard the Interzonenzug were injured also, but whenever someone tries to approach the train the Stasi-officers are quick to shoo them away. No one is to approach that train’s passengers uncontrolled, only a few selected responders under command of the Stasi are allowed to come to that train’s passengers’ aid. The Stasi wants to know how the accident happened. Their suspicion: It was sabotage, a planned attack on the transit-system crossing through the GDR. This was always the go-to claim, no matter how often the following investigation unveiled technical defects or negligent operation. This time, too, the result will be that the driver of the Interzonenzug had been speeding and ignored signals. Visibility had been as poor as 5m/16ft, yet still he didn’t slow down at any point before it was too late. Despite the violent impact he is among the survivors, having suffered severe injuries. His colleague on the regional train wasn’t as lucky.
Four hours after the accident a new locomotive is brought in to take most of the Interzonenzug to west Germany, while responders take until the next morning to painstakingly work their way through the remains of the regional train. It’s 4:30am when the last victim is recovered from the wreckage. Who really is to blame for the collision is never cleared up, presumably the investigation is kept from getting too thorough to avoid a scandal. A short article is all the public gets, five months after the accident the train driver is sentenced to 5 years in jail. It’s up for debate if he was really to blame, especially if he was the only one to blame. He’d been told to never stop, he’d been told that he absolutely had to make it to the border in time, and he’d been told that he would have priority and a free path ahead. But he also ran several red signals and went significantly faster than the conditions allowed. In a different place, different era, his superiors might have faced consequences also, but one can only guess.
After the accident both locomotives are repaired and return to service, becoming property of the DB (German national railway) after reunification. 250 207, the locomotive that pulled the Interzonenzug, becomes 155 207–7 (2XX marks diesel locomotives in the DB’s system, 1XX is for electric locomotives) and remains in service until 2014, being scrapped on the 8th of September 2015. It is outlived by 250 017 (later 155 017–1) in service by 3 months, they get scrapped on the same day.
The Interzonenzug-program ends with the German reunification, most of the connections are turned into normal intercity-services. The DB updates the infrastructure and improves the safety-level considerably, nowadays running a red signal would automatically stop a train after a few hundred meters and having systems on board for an automatic stop after running a red signal has been mandatory for years.
Around the year 2000 problems with the suspension of the series 155 forces a reduction of the top speed to 80kph/50mph, and the DB starts retiring the type, in part to stockpile spare parts (with the manufacturer being gone it was difficult to get spares) for the remaining locomotives. Contrary to earlier plans the DB only stopped using the type by 2019, retiring their last 15 locomotives. Not all have been scrapped yet, and 60 locomotives are in service with various private freight service providers.
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