Background
Aitrang is a small town of 2035 people (as of December 2019, 1632 in 1970) in the far south of Germany, 84km/52mi west-southwest of Munich and 30km/18.5mi north of the Austrian border at Füssen (known for Neuschwanstein Castle).
Running through the town from east to west is the Bavarian Allgäu Railway, named after the Allgäu-Region of Germany it runs through. Trains enter the town from the southeast, navigate a 90° right hand turn followed by a sharp left hand turn, and leave Aitrang in the northwest. Opened in it’s full expansion in 1853 and fully electrified in November 2020 this dual-track mainline connects Munich with Lindau (Bodensee) and serves everything from small regional passenger trains to international express trains and (nowadays only occasional) freight trains. Aitrang itself does have a station, but passenger services to the town stopped in the early 1980s, with several attempted revivals failing. The station building still stands, being designated a historic building it cannot be just torn down.
The trains involved
The main train involved in the accident was the TEE “Bavaria” from Munich to Zürich, an international luxury express train. The TEE-program (standing for “Trans Europ Express”) had been started in 1954 on an idea from the Dutch National Railway to offer comfortable and stress-free connections between major European cities as a sign of new and modern times after WW2. Aimed at businessmen routes were set up to depart in the mornings and return in the evenings, with flawless operation being guaranteed through a set of specifications the cooperating rail companies (German DB, Dutch NS, Belgian NMBS/SNCB, Swiss SBB, French SNCF, Italian FS and Luxembourgian CFL) agreed upon:
- Diesel-powered trains reaching 140kph/87mph (electric trains were introduced later)
- Extremely smooth acceleration and running characteristics
- No more than 18 metric tons per axle
- 120 seats or more, no more than 3 across
- First class seating only (you actually had to pay a “TEE Upcharge” on top of first class prices)
- A full kitchen on board
- Dedicated rooms on board to take care of customs/ID-checks while in motion
- A standardized horizontal-split paint scheme of wine-red and beige (RAL 3004 and 1001)
The TEE-Network reached it’s largest expansion in the early 1970s, connecting throughout vast parts of Europe. Over time more than 60 connections ran under the TEE-branding, starting with the “Arbalète” from Paris to Zürich in Summer 1957.
Starting in winter 1969/1970 the TEE 56 “Bavaria” ferried passengers between Munich and Zürich, using Swiss-Dutch RAm diesel multiple units which had been introduced in 1957. Weighting 229 metric tons empty the four-car trains measured 98m/322ft in length, offering seating for up to 114 passengers in the regular cars as well as 32 seats in the restaurant car. Each train consisted of a motor car housing two sixteen-cylinder four stroke diesel engines (combined output 1350kw/1800hp) and a 223kw/1300hp engine acting as a generator for onboard electronics, a passenger car with nine compartments, a restaurant car with some open space seating and the control car (holding further seating along with the control cab).Reaching 140kph/87mph the heavy trains barely qualified for the TEE-specifications. In 1971 the trains were fitted with a signalling system (“Indusi”) allowing them to run through Swiss territory. The system meant that the trains could be automatically stopped if they ran a red signal. However, they had no Driver Vigilance Device (also called a “deadman switch”), a button or pedal the driver has to press regularly to prove that he’s awake/conscious and in control or the train will stop. Serving the “Bavaria” on the day of the accident was RAm number 501, made in 1957 as one of just 5 trains ever made, running with the control car first and carrying 53 passengers as well as a crew of 6.
Coming the other way on it’s eastbound trip from Kempten to Aitrang was Pto 2513, a regional service provided by the DB with a VT 98 rail bus. Based on the visually identical VT 95 the VT98 was a small lightweight rail bus carrying up to 56 passengers, fitted with two engines to better handle mountainous terrain. Weighting just 18.9 metric tons the 13.95m/46ft long buses used two Büssing U10 engines mounted under the floor of the vehicle. Taken from Berlin’s city buses the engines produced 110kw/150hp each, enough for 90kph/56mph. With their cheap running costs and high reliability the VT 95-plattform kept many otherwise unprofitable connections going, quickly garnering a fan base as the “savior of the branch line” (despite also running on main lines) which allowed a few of the buses to survive until today. Being noisy, slow, relatively bare inside and stopping all the time the rail buses were pretty much the opposite of a TEE.
The accident
On the 9th of February 1971 TEE 56 had left Munich at 5:46pm and was scheduled to reach it’s first underway stop in Kempten at 7:01. It was a cold night with dense fog limiting visibility, but since TEE trains had priority over other connections the train still ran at 130–140kph/81–87mph after leaving Munich. Closing in on Aitrang the track got curvier and less level, requiring a slight reduction in speed. The right-left S-turn within Aitrang was limited to 80kph/50mph. It was calculated that a PULLED train would derail at 124kph/77mph. At approximately 6:42pm the TEE speeds past Aitrang station, the local dispatcher later said he saw sparks flying off the motor car’s brakes. Obviously, the train was going way too fast. Entering the right hand turn at 125kph/78kph the forward axles of the control car (which is much lighter than the motor car or a locomotive)climb out of the track to the left, as it falls over it pulls the restaurant car with it. The train cars land in a small riverbed on the outside of the turn while the following passenger car is turned sideways and pulled off the tracks also. The rear motor car, at least, remains upright and digs itself into the gravel on the oncoming side. At this point a lot of the victims are already dead, some being thrown from the cars (the train does not feature laminated glass) and in a few cases then struck by the derailing train while others were crushed by moving tables and seats in the restaurant car, whose interior largely isn’t bolted in place.
The dispatcher, standing less than 500m/1640ft from the site of the derailment apparently doesn’t notice what happened down the track, but due to the wreckage blocking both tracks (and presumably still communicates with the signal-system) his control desk in the signal box shows both tracks as occupied. Knowing that something went very wrong in some way and also knowing that a rail bus was inbound momentarily he immediately withdraws the approach-permission for said bus. It’s unknown if the driver of the rail bus saw the signal change, either way he triggers an emergency stop before running into the wreckage at approximately 40kph/25mph. The lightweight construction of the bus has little to offer against the massive express train’s wreck, 2 people aboard the rail bus are killed and six injured as the bus’ body folds in on impact. All in all 28 people die, 42 survive (19 of which with severe injuries).
Aftermath
Hearing the derailment and subsequent collision in their nearby houses a number of residents are the first people on site, professional responders take another few minutes to reach the scene. One of the locals is the Nieberle-family. The mother and daughter just arrive home around the time of the accident, wondering where the husband and son went. It takes a few minutes for them to realize that the remains of two trains are sitting only a few meters from their backyard, and the two men went to help when the noise of the derailment shook the house. Miss Nieberle, the mother, remembers heading to the neighbors to ask what’s going on, and finding the entire houses’s floor covered in blood. Unwilling to wait for responders, and probably knowing some survivors wouldn’t survive the drive to the hospital, civilians had started rescuing people from the wreckage, taking them to the house and turning the ground floor into a makeshift hospital. When professional responders arrive, some surgeries are performed right on the kitchen table. The Nieberle’s home becomes sort of a media center, housing arriving journalists from the cold weather outside. It seems like half the town is at the site of the accident, so many people want to help that the police has to send people home in order to get the chaos under control. Shortly after the accident the DB sent their recovery-crew, but since the RAm was a Swiss/Dutch train the DB’s experts had little knowledge of it and couldn’t tell responders how to best cut entrances into the mangled cars without risking further harm to the trapped survivors. A local gym was turned into the morgue, with responders trying to match body parts and relatives being asked to help identify victims.
With the rescue and recovery of the passengers concluding during the night investigators took over the site, trying to find out what had caused the prestigious train to turn into a massive field of debris, taking several lives in the process. Neither the TEE’s nor the bus’ driver had survived, so the investigation had to largely rely on physical evidence and the dispatcher’s statement. An early theory that the train driver might’ve forgotten where he was, getting confused in the dark and foggy conditions leading to him going too fast was heavily protested by his coworkers as he had been very experienced, both on the route and in general. Another theory that persists to this day is that the driver had a drug overdose, passed out from alcohol or died from a heart attack before the train even left the tracks. This theory is supported by the train lacking a dead man switch, something that would’ve been mandatory since January 1971. However, an autopsy found no trace of any drugs and alcohol or any sign of a stroke. While investigators could never present a 100% certain cause two main theories exist today:
- The Oerlikon brake system installed on the trains had a history of unreliability, valves in the control car would malfunction and keep the full brakes from being applied or released on input from the control car. This had caused several unscheduled stops and even cancelled trains.
- A different theory suggested that condensation within the pneumatic lines of the brakes had frozen in the cold night, disabling the brakes in part of the train. This would explain how the brakes on the motor car could be fully applied, emitting sparks, and the train still not decelerating sufficiently. Maybe the valves were fine, the air just couldn’t leave parts of the system so the momentum of the heavy train maintained too much speed for the turn. This was heavily protested by the SBB, the provider of the train, pointing to the train decelerating to 80kph just as it was meant to just a few kilometers away when passing through the town of Kaufbeuren.
The Indusi-system aboard the train ran on a two second delay, it showed no record of the brakes being applied. This contradicted the statement by the dispatcher and the condition of the motor car’s brakes when recovered from the wreckage. In the end the investigation had to list “brake failure” as the cause of the derailment, with no closer specification. It was decided, however, that a warmer temperature might have avoided the collision with the rail bus, as investigators found the icy conditions to significantly lengthen the bus’ braking distance.
The bus and most of the TEE were torn up for scrap on site once the investigation didn’t require them anymore, while the motor car was re-tracked, towed to Zürich and later taken to the Netherlands for scrap. The railway-line was closed for a week while being repaired, when it opened the TEE Bavaria returned also. However, it was decided to replace the RAm with a safer conventional train pulled by the German series 210 diesel-locomotive for most of the trip and a swiss RE 4/4 I for the Swiss section. Obviously, while safer, this made for a far less special sight.
While the VT 98 was retired by the DB in 2000 and can still be driven today (at least one unit surviving in private hands for tourist drives) the RAm was retired from European tracks in 1977 and sold to Canada, being reconfigured and repainted before starting service as the “Northlander”.
Surviving the end of the TEE-program in 1988 one Northlander escaped the scrapyard and was returned to the Netherlands in 1998 after being bought by private enthusiasts. The incomplete train, consisting of two control cars and two passenger cars but no motor car were meant to be restored to TEE-condition and get a reconstructed motor car before being used for tourist drives. By 2020 work appears to have stalled, with the partially repainted train being stored outdoors at Amsterdam main station and suffering severe vandalism.
The site today
While Aitrang lost it’s connection to the railway line the track still is right where it was in the 70s, and still used by Eurocity trains (the quasi-successor of the TEE). In 2012, after years of arguing and the DB refusing to pay for a memorial on their grounds a very very minimalist memorial-stone was placed on the town’s property only a few meters from the site. In interviews in 2016, after two trains collided in nearby Bad Aibling, it was said that many residents still remember the night of the accident, remember what they did when the noise of the crashes echoed across town. The commander of one of the local fire departments, then (2016) 87 years old recalls how they were the first crew to set up lights, how no-one could stomach the sights inside the restaurant car for long. Another resident who was involved in getting survivors somewhere warm and collected in one place feels reminded of “that night”. She says she felt “like it was happening all over again”, when she got the message on her way home from dropping off flowers and candles at the memorial. The local residents were glad to finally get some sort of official memorial, some honoring reminder of the night that ended 28 lives from 5 countries. The memorial is located on the Friesenrieder Straße, a few meters from where the Nieberle-family still lives today.
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