Background
Wannsee is the south-westernmost district of Berlin, the German capitol. The district, which is home to 10334 people (as of December 2019) is located 19km/12mi southwest of downtown Berlin and 157.5km/98mi north of Dresden. The district is known worldwide for the 1942 Wannsee Conference, during which the Nazi Party organized the continuation of the Holocaust.
Most of the district is located on a large island, surrounded by the Wannsee itself to the north/northeast and the Havel River as well as a row of smaller lakes on the other 3 sides. On the southern edge the Griebnitzsee separates it from Babelsberg (home of Europe’s largest movie studio), forming the border to the neighboring federal state of Brandenburg. The island itself is served by the B1 federal highway, while the mainland to the east of the island holds the Autobahn A115 (which used to be the AVUS racetrack until 1998)and the Berlin-Blankenheim Railway (also called the Wetzlarer Bahn/”Wetzlar Railway”). Opened in 1882 the Berlin-Blankenheim Railway is a 188km/117mi mostly double-tracked main line connecting Berlin with the federal states of Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt originally serving both passenger and freight services, after being reconnected during German reunification the route was almost exclusively used for passenger services.
The trains involved
Travelling from Berlin main station (renamed Berlin Ostbahnhof/Berlin East station in 1998) to Stuttgart main station was Intercity 995 “Leo von Klenze”, a national express train named after Mister Klenze (1784–1864), a German architect, painter and writer. Pulling the train was DB (German national railway) 229 113, a 101 metric ton six-axle diesel locomotive. Introduced into service with the DR (Deutsche Reichsbahn, the national railway of the DDR/GDR) as the series 119 in 1976 the locomotive was used mostly for heavy passenger trains, putting out 1980kw/2655hp and being able to reach 120kph/75mph. The 19.5m/64ft long locomotives were the biggest and strongest locomotive that could be sent onto branch lines, as the six-axle design brought the axle-load down low enough for those routes. The locomotives were nicknamed the “U-Boot” (Submarine), first for the round engine room windows running down the sides and, once horrible reliability came to light, for how often they “dove into the workshop”. The reliability was so poor that the production was stopped after 200 locomotives, as, at any point, only about half the locomotives was available for service.
Coming the other way on its northbound trip from Hannover main station to Berlin Zoologischer Garten station (often referred to as Bahnhof Zoo/Zoo station) was D 10545, an express train pulled by DB 218 267 with a just 21 years old driver. Introduced in 1971 the DB series 218, a 16.4m/54ft long four-axle diesel locomotive, is the youngest member of the V160 locomotive-family. It held several improvements over its siblings, being a combination of the best of the other V160-locomotives including the series 215’s 1840kw/2467hp diesel engine which allowed the 80 metric ton locomotive to reach up to 140kph/87mph while having enough power left over to power a generator for heating passenger cars.
The accident
On Good Friday (a Christian holiday) 1993, the 9th of April, at 1:34pm IC 995 departs Berlin main station on its southbound journey to Stuttgart. At the same time 218 267 is approaching Berlin from the southwest, coming from Hannover in the federal state of Lower Saxony. The trains carry approximately 1300 people including the crews and 4 people on the locomotives.
There had been some construction going on south of Berlin-Wannsee station in the prior days, necessitating a single-track operation in the prior days. Since the signal-system wouldn’t allow trains to be dispatched on the left hand track the dispatcher at Berlin-Wannsee station had gotten used to dispatching trains with the replacement signal, overriding the safety-system. However, as this drastically reduced the capacity of the affected stretch (approximately 4km/2.5mi) construction had been put on hold for the Easter-holidays so trains could run normally and better handle the increased demand. As IC 995 approached Berlin-Wannsee station at around 2:20pm the dispatcher routinely set the path for the train so that it would pass into the left hand track, as he’d done it for countless trains in the prior days. The signaling-system didn’t allow this, turning the station’s exit-signal red due to it being both the wrong track and the oncoming passenger train occupying the track. Thinking this was the same issue present in the past days due to construction the dispatcher used the replacement signal and overrode the blockade. Thus IC 995 switched from the right hand into the left hand track as it passed through the station, putting it on a fatal collision course.
The driver on the locomotive didn’t realize the error, assuming construction was still ongoing. He had a printed out weekly manual (the “Collection of temporary slow speed zones and other irregular situations”) with him that he was required to read before departing and that would have told him that construction was on hold, but he had neglected to read it on that day. The reason for this was never publicly revealed, its possible that he got to the locomotive late or that he just wanted to skip the short but boring read.
Making the whole situation worse was the fact that the section between Berlin main station and Berlin-Griebnitzsee (the southern end of the construction are) wasn’t fitted with a shared radio-system yet as the involved parties (DR, the Berlin Senate and the German Postal Service) had failed to agree on what frequencies to use. The dispatcher in Berlin-Wannsee could talk to his colleague in Berlin-Griebnitzsee, but to neither train as those were on a different radio-system than the other dispatcher. Only the dispatcher at Berlin-Griebnitzsee could talk to the trains.
Moments after sending IC 995 on collision course with the northbound train the dispatcher realized his error, too late to revoke the signal. Unable to contact the train he radioed his colleague in Berlin-Griebnitzsee, urging him to revoke the green signal for D 10545. The radio-call came seconds too late, as the train had just passed the signal. The dispatcher at Griebnitzsee immediately radioed the train to stop, but the train was too far away and only received an unintelligible transmission. Meanwhile the driver on 229 113, fitted with a better radio-system, heard the transmission and understood it despite being further away from the origin of it, but ignored it as it didn’t refer to his train. Meanwhile Mister Thiele, a passenger on D 10545 on his way to visiting his parents in Berlin, was photographing out the window and at 2:28pm captured another train coming straight at the one he was on.
The driver of 229 113 saw the other train coming and initiated an emergency stop a few seconds before the collision, then retreating towards the back of the locomotive. His assistant presumably wanted to jump off instead, opening a door in the last moments before the collision. The driver aboard 218 267 was presumably so shocked by the sudden appearance of the other train that he neither moved nor initiated a stop. At 2:29pm 218 267, travelling at 40kph/25mph, hit the oncoming IC 995 head-on at a combined speed of 103kph/64mph. The driver of 218 267 and his assistant were killed on impact, 229 113’s assistant was thrown from the locomotive through the door he had opened and survived with broken bones. The two locomotives became wedged together in what must’ve been a deafening crash, the first car of each train was pushed into the locomotives, compacting both cars to about half their original length. One passenger in IC 995’s leading car died as the train car broke up on the back of the much sturdier locomotive, bringing the death-toll to 3. Both trains largely derailed, with cars running into one another or partially telescoping above the wreckage. Unusual for such an accident both trains remained largely aligned, with no cars zigzagging or rolling over.
Aftermath
The first person on site was Miss Anlauf, a local resident who had been walking on a hiking path next to the tracks and actually ran into the woods to avoid being struck by the trains or debris when she realized what was about to happen. A few minutes after the accident the local fire department, alarmed by the dispatchers and survivors aboard the train, makes their way down narrow dirt tracks to the site of the accident. Their report lists seeing some train cars having “popped open” and around 1200 people wandering the site and the surrounding woods in more or less severe states of shock.
49 People are injured to a degree that requires medical attention, 26 are listed as severely injured. The conductor of D 10545 ends up loosing a leg but survives. A nearby dock for excursion ships is turned into a makeshift landing site for 3 emergency helicopters while the remaining survivors are rounded up and taken to Berlin-Wannsee station to be registered, evaluated and then either taken to the hospital, treated and released or released right away. Once all passengers are accounted for (be it at Berlin-Wannsee station or still on the trains) the remaining track is opened for traffic at a slow speed, meaning responders have to regularly watch out for passing trains before crossing the track to get to and from the wreckage. Who made the decision to not leave the track blocked or why isn’t known.
The structural damage to the train cars is severe, responders take hours working with hydraulic spreaders (“Jaws of Life”), power cutters and crowbars to make their way into and through the train cars to rescue survivors. It is considered a miracle that nearly everyone survived, and that so few people suffered severe injuries. Late in the evening a recovery-train with a heavy duty crane reaches the site, at 9pm the locomotives are separated and the bodies of 218 267’s driver and his assistant can be recovered. During the course of the next day the locomotives are recovered and taken away, at that point the last of the 150 responders from the fire department and THW (Federal agency for technical relief) leave the scene.
The investigation places partial blame on the dispatcher, but expresses that IC 995’s driver is also at fault as well as the administration’s habit of dragging their feet on cooperating after reunification. They could’ve easily had a single, shared radio system set up by the time the accident happened, even if the DB and the DR hadn’t been united yet but were still separate companies. There is no record of legal consequences for anyone involved.
After the accident the cooperation between the companies is enforced and the integration of safety systems drastically accelerated. On the 31st of December 1993 the DR officially ceases to exist, with all services and infrastructure being moved to the DB’s authority. By that time the DB has full access to the radio and other safety-systems, something fatally missing on the day of the accident.
The DB retires the last series 229 locomotives by 2006, sending over 100 of them to the scrapyard in short succession. 229 113 was initially repaired (getting parts from a series 229 which had burned down) and returned to service, being repainted in the DB’s paint scheme before being retired and scrapped in February 2004. Today not even half a dozen locomotives survives in museum collections, some of which being no longer operational. While the series 218 is increasingly loosing work as electrification progresses the model is far from gone, a lot of the 411 locomotives made are still in service with the DB or private operators. 218 267 wasn’t quite as lucky, being written off after the accident and scrapped. Today nothing at the site reminds passerby of the accident, but it is still very present with locals and railway enthusiasts across Germany.
History repeats itself
In 2016 two regional trains collide head on in southern Germany near the town of Bad Aibling, taking 11 lives. A dispatcher had falsely assumed a signal-malfunction and overridden the safety-system, the same chain of events that sent the two trains on a collision course in 1993. The radio systems at Bad Aibling had been compatible, but the dispatcher sent the stop-order to the wrong recepient by accident, with the collision having happened by the time he corrected it. But even with the difference one still can’t deny eerie similarities between the two accidents.
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