Eight Chances: The 1975 Munich (Germany) Level Crossing Collision
Background
Munich (German: München) is a city of 1.5 Million people in southern Germany, located 61km/38mi south of Ingolstadt and 103km/64mi north of Innsbruck (Austria) in the federal state of Bavaria, whose capital it is (both measurements in linear distance).
One of the countless rail lines serving the city is the Munich-Treuchtlingen rail line, a 137km/85mi double-tracked main line connecting the city with Ingolstadt and Treuchtlingen to the northwest. The line opened between 1867 and 1870, being later rerouted and rebuilt several times. It sees all kinds of usage from suburban (“S-Bahn”) to regional and long distance passenger trains, along with freight services, at up to 200kph as of 2005.
Back in the 1970s a level crossing allowed road vehicles to cross the rail line in Munich-Allach-Untermenzing, a district in the far northwest of the city. The level crossing, part of the Krauss-Maffei-Road, measured almost 50m/165ft as it crossed a total of eight railway tracks belonging to the Munich-Treuchtlingen line (split between dedicated S-Bahn and long distance tracks), shunting tracks and storage tracks. That is 4x as many tracks as most/regular level crossings. The complexity of the crossing was met with an approach report system (“Anrückmeldeanlage”), a schematic representation of the crossing in the crossing guard’s office (“Post 5”, right by the crossing), where an approaching train would be represented by a small light bulb illuminating red instead of white on the schema and an alarm going off which had to be disabled by the guard. Once the train was through the light turned back to white. This was done on top of each train being announced via a phone call, the regular system for level crossings at the time. A special cover (the “two train cap”) was also to be applied to the button for the barriers if more than one train approached at once, ensuring the guard would not open the barriers early.
The Vehicles Involved
N 4208 was a regional outbound passenger service from Munich to Ingolstadt, consisting of a DB Class 110 electric locomotive pushing six “Silberling”-type passenger cars, being driven from the leading type BDnf 738 cab car. The BDnf car (nicknamed “rabbit box” due to the boxy cab), introduced in 1959, measured 26.4m/87ft in length at an empty weight of 33 metric tons and could carry 66 passengers at up to 120kph/75mph. Cab cars are regularly used in German passenger trains, as controlling the locomotive from a second driver’s cab on the far end of the train allows quicker turnarounds without shunting the locomotive to the opposite end of the train. On the day of the accident it was driven by a trainee driver, with an experienced train driver looking on.
Driving through Allach at the time of the accident was an MAN 750 city bus, serving line 78 of Munich’s public transit with 14 people onboard. The MAN 750 was a diesel bus made from 1959 to 1974 in different versions, varying in length between 10 and 12 meters (33–39ft) with around 35 seats and space for up to 80 standing passengers. The exact specification of the bus involved is unknown.
The Accident
The 25 years old crossing guard is contacted by the dispatcher at 7:12am on the 7th of March 1975, being informed that the S-Bahn from Dachau into Munich is inbound. The approach report system is set off at the same time, and the guard turns off the alarm after closing the barriers. He then receives information that a passenger train from Munich is inbound also, but doesn’t put the two train cap on the button for the barriers. He proceeds to forget about the passenger train and, once the S-Bahn is through at 7:16am, starts to open the barriers again. N 4208 is about 500m/1600ft away, at 120kph/75mph. The dispatcher, located in a nearby signal box, sees the barriers open and screams into the telephone for the guard to stop:
“Post 5, Post 5, what are you doing? Close it, close it, the passenger train is coming!!”
But the warning comes too late as a city bus, which had stopped at the barriers, has already entered the crossing. The driver aboard N 4208 yells at the trainee to stop when he sees the barriers start to open and the trainee triggers an emergency stop, but it’s too late to avoid disaster. He later reports catching a glimpse of the bus as he throws himself to the ground, a second later the train hits the bus in the side at 111kph/69mph, almost completely obliterating the vehicle as it’s dragged along for almost 500m/1600ft. The train’s leading three cars derail, with the second breaking out of alignment and ending up pointing off the rail line. 2 passengers are thrown from the bus and survive, two more survive with severe injuries aboard the bus, 10 people in the bus die. Three people aboard the train suffer minor injuries as the train derails before coming to a rest.
Aftermath
Responders arrive at the site within minutes, and are met with a disastrous sight. A stretch of almost 500m/1600ft past the level crossing is covered in remains of the bus and its passengers, the only recognizable piece of the bus is a section of the bus’ front end, ending ahead of the front wheels and going up to where the windows began. The responders find the two survivors who weren’t thrown from the bus by the side of the tracks, but both die by the time they get to hospital. Reporters interview one of the survivors, a 13 years old boy, at the hospital. The article says he “got almost all teeth knocked out” when he hit the ground, but he still tells reporters how lucky he got.
It’s fairly clear that the bus driver had no chance to avoid the accident, and the train drivers even less so. The attention thus soon focuses on the level crossing and its guard. The 25 years old man had started at the position just a few months before in January, after working as a shunting worker and light locomotive driver (a class of small locomotives used for shunting). Records show that he had caused several accidents there, causing minor damage, mostly by carelessness. He also had had an unusually high amount of sick days. The DB’s (German national railway) company physician had urgently recommended a less stressful position for him, but the advice went unheard. The worker himself had asked for a different placement, or a different position instead of being put to work as a crossing guard. He’d suggested positions such as handling luggage.
The level crossing had already been a point of contention between the Allach-area and the DB, due to its size and the amount of trains passing it. The “Abendzeitung” (Evening Paper) counts in 1975, and gets 234 separate openings in a day. 234 chances for an accident, each split into 8 smaller chances for each track a vehicle has to clear. It’s the guard himself who says that it was a regular occurrence to see people barely reach the far side’s barrier before a train came through. But a planned underpass 300m/984ft away had been postponed, downgraded in urgency so it hadn’t been built yet. The line had a crossing every 700m/2300ft, seven crossings within 5km/3mi. But after the accident the DB and the city just pushed the blame back and forth for why none the crossings had been replaced. The DB also tirelessly pointed out that they had no reason to build the underpass without help from the city, there hadn’t been an accident at the crossing in 20 years.
The residents of Allach, many of whom knew someone who died in the accident or, if not, were plenty upset by five schoolchildren aboard the bus dying, answered with a 1500-attendee demonstration through Allach, demanding safer crossings. Mister Mayr, a 49 years old crossing guard, tells the Abendzeitung that the crossing where the accident happened was notorious, that every guard working it would be scared about causing an accident at it. What the DB does eventually introduce is linking the signals and the barriers, approaching trains now won’t get a green signal if the barriers are up, and barriers can’t be raised on a green signal. Not perfect, but an improvement that eventually becomes the standard.
The investigation declares that N 4208 usually passed the crossing slightly earlier, often at the same time as the S-Bahn. But on the day of the accident it had started at Starnberg, a southern suburb, instead of Munich main station, giving it a slight delay by the time it reached the crossing. It’s likely that the guard assumed that the train had passed through hidden by the S-Bahn, and thus opened the barriers. He didn’t question his assumption as he hadn’t put the two train cap on the button that was meant to make guards ensure both had passed through. Just the thought “did both really go through?” may have taken enough time to let N 4208 pass.
The legal investigation ends without charges being pressed against the guard, declaring that he was of insufficient fault to be put on trial. The investigators announce that he was known to be overwhelmed by jobs at that stress-level, that “the physical, mental and psychological condition” of him made him “generally unfit for operative service”. This declaration found its way into the indictment against six higher-level employees of the DB, who were charged with negligent manslaughter and negligent cause of bodily harm. As per the public prosecutors, they were responsible for letting an employee work the high-risk job at the large crossing despite knowing about his “neurological overuse” and “chronic dysfunctions of the digestive system along with dizziness” in high stress situations. The court declares that, had they listened to the physician and not placed the guard at that position, the accident would likely not have happened. However, the sentence is rather mild, with only three defendants being sentenced at all, and only to eight months probation each.
The guard returns to work after a stint at a mental hospital, now working as a ticket salesman at Munich main station before leaving the railway industry. The level crossing is eventually removed, nowadays a parking garage’s driveway roughly marks where the road used to head for the railway tracks. The people of Allach still remember the accident, remember the bus driver who’s first accident this was, remember the woman who lost both her daughters in the crash. 2025 saw no official memorial event for the 50th anniversary, but as the Abendzeitung put it, even without the event and with the crossing physically gone the accident will never “leave the head” especially of older residents.
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