Collapsed like a House of Cards: The 2012 Hosena Train Collision
By: Max S
Tags: Accident, Traffic, Germany, Trains, Railways

The signal box has been nearly leveled during the collapse, with several freight cars pilling up around and on top of the debris responders might not have immediately realized what they were looking at.

The debris that used to be the two stories high signal box, you can see part of it’s interior on the right.

Within minutes professional responders arrive on site, supported by the quarry’s and steel mill’s safety crews. The fire department grounds the torn overhead wires as the driver of DGS 49325 is airlifted to a hospital. The other train’s driver survives with minor injuries from his train being jolted back on impact, he’s taken to the hospital but soon released. The THW (German federal agency for technical relief) stabilizes the wreckage, as investigators try to make sense of the sprawling wreckage man trailers, dogs trained to find people, are released upon the pile of debris that used to be the signal box, meant to find the location of the missing employee. They are successful, but when the responders manage to dig their way down to him through the debris 17 hours after the accident they can only recover his dead body. In an endlessly tragic and unfair twist of fate the only fatality to be claimed wasn’t on either train or to blame for the events.

A dog searching the debris of the signal box for a trace of the missing employee.

An initial theory, based off the eastbound train driver’s sighting of smoke on the runaway train, claims that a fire could have broken out aboard the locomotive, disabling the brakes and/or incapacitating the driver. But it soon finds itself disproved as there is not only no sign of a fire to be found, but a torn-off axle also shows flat spots, indicating that the brakes on the locomotive were fully applied for a considerable distance. As they make their way through the wreckage investigators find all the locomotive’s wheels, and all of them show matching flat spots. The freight cars, meanwhile, show no sign of applied brakes.

A photo from the report, marking the flat spot on a torn out axle.

It’s clear that the brake-less train is the cause for the accident, a situation made worse by the slightly downhill path of the heavy train. Investigators find the valve on the back of the locomotive to be closed, and while it’s impossible to prove if this happened during the accident or had been closed since departure it supports the theory of a falsely/negligently performed brake test.

The closed main valve on the back of ITL 186 140 (note that the photo was rotated 90° for the report as the locomotive was on it’s side).

As the train cars start being removed from the site investigators manage to recover the data-logger from the locomotive, it’s data all but confirms the theory of a rushed brake-test, further supported by the records from Schwarzkollm giving an impossible time-frame for a proper brake test. The public prosecutor’s office from Cottbus files charges against the driver for negligent manslaughter and dangerous interference with rail traffic. He needlessly rushed vital safety-procedures, leading to the collision being inevitable by the time he departed Schwarzkollm. The recovery and repairs at the site take over a month, requiring the cancellation of countless trains and needing the local companies to receive and send their materials by trucks instead of trains. ITL 186 140 is one of the last pieces of the wreckage to be removed, having been partially disassembled to fit on a flatbed truck it’s lifted out of the wreckage and taken away in late August 2012. After the end of the legal proceedings the locomotive is deemed beyond saving and disposed of. A temporary signal box system is set up in containers, by September 2014 the DB started operation of a whole new electronic system, no longer requiring a building to be near the siding to operate signals and points. The system alone cost 30 million Euros/36.8 million USD. The official report lists total damage, excluding the new signal box system and medical bills, at 7.2 million Euros/8.8 million USD.

ITL 186 140, lacking the pantographs on the roof due to width-limits, being removed from the site.

In July 2014 the driver of the runaway train is sentenced to nine months in jail, a sentence turned into full probation, and has to pay an undisclosed fine. ITL improves it’s training for drivers, further emphasizing the importance of performing certain procedures calm and focused. While no doubt a tragedy the events could have gone much worse, no-one wants to imagine what would’ve happened had the runaway train struck cars at either of the two open level crossings it passed or if it had struck a passenger train in the station. It’s also lucky that the eastbound train had turned into the siding moments before the collision, a head-on crash had most likely resolved in one or both drivers dying. The new building holding the controls for the signal box system is dedicated to the deceased employee, a bronze plaque on the wall informs of him and the accident. The site of the old building remained empty except for a wooden cross inscribed with “W3” (the number of the destroyed signal box).

A news video showing the aftermath of the collision.

History repeats itself

In November 2013, while the investigation into the 2012 train collision is still ongoing, two freight trains are involved in a rear-end collision just a few meters from the site of the 2012 collision. The driver of the locomotive, this time from the DB rather than an independent company, suffers minor injures after being trapped in the wreckage of his locomotive as his leading car mounts and crushes most of the locomotive’s body under itself. This time the fault is with the signal box crew, allowing the DB’s train to proceed into an occupied track after not properly checking if the previous train had vacated it. An emergency stop came too late to stop the heavy train in time. The crew’s job had become more difficult after the accident in 2012 as a floodlight attached to the destroyed signal box building was no longer there.

The destroyed locomotive from the 2013 collision, you can see a freight car’s axle sit on top of it on the right.

Trivia

By pure coincidence Tillig, a German model railway manufacturer, debuted an H0-scale (1:87) model of an ITL 186 about a year before the collision. The locomotive they chose to replicate: 186 140, the locomotive destroyed in the collision. So, in a way the locomotive lives on in several enthusiasts’ collections.

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