Wheel Rims

The Eschede train disaster was the worst train accident since 1971 in German history and the world's worst high-speed train disaster. It happened on 3 June 1998, near the village of Eschede in the district of Celle, Lower Saxony (coordinates: 52. more...

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7166° N 10.1925° E). 101 people died and about one hundred were severely injured.

Chronology

The ICE high-speed train "Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen" was on the route from Munich to Hamburg. After stopping in Hanover at 10:30 am, the train continued its journey northwards. Six kilometres south of Eschede, near Celle, the rim of a wheel on the third axle of the first car broke, peeled away from the wheel, and punctured the floor of the car, where it remained embedded.

What followed was a chain of events that unfolded in minutes and yet would later take investigators months to piece together.

As the train passed over the first of two track switches, the embedded wheel rim slammed against the guide rail of the switch, pulling it from the railway ties. This steering rail also penetrated the floor of the car and became embedded there, lifting the axle carriage off the rails. At 10:59, one of the now derailed wheels struck the points lever of the second switch, changing its setting. The rear axles of car number 3 were switched onto parallel track, and the entire car was thereby thrown into the piers supporting a 300-tonne roadway overpass, destroying them.

Car number 4, likewise derailed by the violent deviation of car number 3 and still travelling at 200 km/h (125 mph), passed intact under the bridge and rolled onto the embankment immediately behind it. Three DB railway workers who had been working near the bridge were killed instantly when the derailed car crushed them. The tearing of the wagon hitches caused automatic brakes to engage and the mostly undamaged cars 1 to 3 (as well as the front locomotive) came to a halt at the Eschede train station, some three kilometers (two miles) down the track. As the second half of car number 5 passed under the bridge, the bridge collapsed and fell on the car, flattening it completely. The remaining cars jackknifed into the rubble in a zig-zag pattern as the collapsed bridge had completely obstructed the track: Cars 6 and 7, the service car, the restaurant car, the three first class cars numbered 10 to 12, and the rear locomotive all derailed and slammed into the pile. The resulting mess was likened to a partially collapsed folding ruler.

An automobile was also found in the wreckage. It belonged to the three railway technicians and was probably standing on the bridge before the accident.

The crash made a sound that witnesses later described as "startling", "horribly loud", and "like a plane crash". Nearby residents, alerted by the sound, were the first to arrive at the scene. At 11:02, the local police declared an emergency; at 11:07, as the magnitude of the disaster quickly became apparent, this was elevated to "major emergency". More than 1000 rescue workers from the regional emergency services, fire departments, rescue services, police and army were dispatched. Some 37 emergency physicians, who happened to be attending a professional conference in nearby Hanover, also gave their assistance in the early hours of the rescue effort.

Read more at Wikipedia.org