The Cost of Comfort: The 1998 Eschede Train Derailment
By: Max S
Tags: Crash, Disaster, Derailment, Germany, Railways

The train involved

Introduced in 1988 the ICE 1 (“InterCity Express”) was Germany’s first modern high speed train. Usually running as 14-piece units (which can be shortened to 11 or extended to 16 cars) with a motor car on either end these trains carry up to 703 passengers in a two-class configuration, coming in at a length of 358m/1175ft including the two motor-cars (which have a driver’s cab but don’t carry passengers). Weighting 795 metric tons empty the trains have a power-output of 4800kw/6437hp per motor car, allowing them to reach up to 280kph/174mph (310kph/193mph have been achieved in testing).

Another ICE 1 leaving the Schellenbergtunnel near Nuremberg, showing the distinctive design of the train.

A distinctive feature of the first generation (which shares the motor car design with it’s successor) is the restaurant car (branded “BordRestaurant”), which features a 450mm/17.5in higher roof with several windows, making it easy to spot from the outside. Originally meant to just mark the car in the train and to provide light to the 40 passengers it can host (36 seats and space for 4 standing passengers) the space was eventually filled with technical equipment.

The first generation restaurant car with the characteristic raised roof.

Soon after the first ICE 1 trains started operation complains started coming in from numerous passengers about the train lacking comfort, especially in the restaurant car. Complains listed a humming noise from shaking plates and “wandering glasses” on the tables, in some cases along with an unpleasant vibration. The problem was traced to the train’s monobloc steel wheels, fabricated from a solid piece of steel, developing metal fatigue and out-of-round conditions/flat spots from uneven wear resulting in resonance and vibration at higher speeds. In September 1991 Deutsche Bahn (German national Railway, DB) board member Roland Heinisch contacted the chairman of the board, Heinz Dürr, and urged him to focus on eliminating the problem to avoid both image-damage to the DB’s prestige project and also reduce the risk of damage to the trains themselves. Several solutions were worked out, including changes to the tracks/ballast or developing air suspension for the bogies (the train’s wheelsets). Fearing the high cost of either option attention turned to the slowest kind of rail transport, trams. Following the example of the wheels used by those slow-speed urban transport trains the DB developed the wheel “Bochum 84/Series 064”, which consisted of 3 pieces. An inner steel disc and a separate steel tire, with a 20mm thick hard rubber cushion between them allowing a certain degree of dampening not found in the solid steel monobloc wheels.

A model of the new three-piece wheel next to the torn tire of the crashed train.

Starting testing in late January 1992 with 45 restaurant cars being converted the results were satisfying, with only one report of a crack being found in a steel tire a month after testing started. In summer 1992 Heinisch urged the engineers overseeing the tests to cut the schedule short, and on the 5th of October of the same year the DB announced the end of the “rumbling restaurant” with the new wheels being fitted to the whole fleet. In late 1997 Hanover’s tram operator warned of tires breaking long before their scheduled end of life and advised other users to shorten the replacement intervals. The DB had declined to do this, citing constructive differences between the tram wheels and Bochum 84 wheels.

The Accident

On Wednesday the 3rd of June 1998 ICE 1 number 151, lead by motor car 401 051 is travelling as ICE connection 884 “Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen” from Munich to Hamburg, carrying 287 passengers and 6 crew members. After stopping at Augsburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg, Fulda, Kassel, Göttingen and Hanover it is approaching the town of Eschede, which it will pass right through and continue towards Hamburg, running just 1 minute behind schedule. The train is travelling at 200kph/124mph when, at 10:57:28am, a tire from the forward axle on the rear bogie of the first passenger car (behind the motor car) snapped due to undiscovered fatigue cracks, unwound and drilled itself through the cabin floor, shooting out between two occupied seats and becoming stuck. Sitting in the opposite seats was Mr. Dittmann, who witnessed a giant piece of metal almost striking his wife or son. Dittmann and his family abandoned the compartment and Dittmann went to look for the conductor (who was not in the same car as him). Upon finding the conductor Dittmann was informed that it was mandatory to evaluate the possible damage before triggering an emergency stop. Dittmann would later defend his decision, saying in the rush to get his family out of the compartment he did not see the emergency brake in the compartment and could not find one in the corridor. Coincidentally, following Mr. Dittmann back to car 1 would save the conductor’s life.

As they made their way back towards the damaged compartment the train car began swaying wildly, as the tire had ripped up the wheel guide from a set of points, causing it to tear through the floor also and become lodged in the entrance area, lifting the bogie off the track in the process. The wild swaying reported by Mr. Dittmann and the conductor came from the wheels, lacking guidance, bumping across the sleepers at full speed. At 10:59am one of the derailed wheels struck the variable rails on a second set of points just 150m/492ft from the overpass at Eschede, shifting the set from “straight” to “turn right”.

An animation showing the switch being operated by accident.

This caused the rear wheels of the third car to be diverted into the siding, dooming the train. While the points could be passed straight ahead at high speed, their speed limit for turning into the siding was much lower. The rear end of the 52.5 metric ton car was thrown off the train, rotating almost sideways. It obliterated 2 support columns of the overpass as it derailed, causing the 300 metric ton concrete bridge to start collapsing. The derailing car forced car 4 off the tracks also, racing across the collapsing bridge unharmed as it headed off the tracks to the right. Torn loose from the train it struck and killed two railway workers who had been working at the siding before running into several trees on an embankment and stopping. The pneumatic connectors between the cars being torn caused the brakes to apply, stopping the forward 2 passenger cars largely undamaged a few hundred meters down the track, along with the derailed car 3 which had suffered severe damage from it’s impact with the bridge. Most of the bridge came down on cars five and six. The latter, the restaurant car, was compressed to 150mm high (to compare, an iPhone X is 144mm high). With the tracks now completely blocked by the rubble the remaining cars jackknifed and slammed into the growing wreckage one by one, in a process likened to a folding ruler. Within seconds, 8 ICE-cars are compressed to a length barely more than a single ICE 1 car (26.4m/87 feet).

An overview of the wreckage shortly after responders start arriving.

Living just 20 meters from the railway tracks, and under 100 from the bridge is Miss Karl, at the time 50 years old. She recalls sitting in the kitchen planning some changes to the garden with her husband, when a deafening rumble causes the house to shake and throw a coffee cup off the table. At the time her husband wonders if a plane crashed nearby. Stepping outside Miss Karl and her husband are met by over 100 metric tons of torn and twisted metal, as part of the crashed ICE has ended up just a few steps from her front door. Inadvertently, the couple becomes the first responders to Germany’s worst railway disaster.

A photo taken by Miss Karl during the recovery of the wreckage, the train nearly took out her house.

While the forward passenger cars tear off the leading motor car and stop, the motor car coasts on even with zero propulsion and the brakes fully applied. It comes to a stop nearly undamaged 2km/1,24mi past Eschede station. The driver, who felt barely more than a jolt and a sudden loss of power, suspects a simple technical fault. He is in the process of trying to restart the engines when Eschede station’s dispatcher radios him, telling him that his power car passed the station alone and that something terrible must have happened. The driver is paralyzed by the realization, by the time responders get to him he is still sitting upright at the control desk. It’s the dispatcher who, sensing something went very wrong, locks down the railway line and notifies the authorities, most likely giving clearance to various emergency calls about explosions or plane crashes in the area.

The barely damaged leading motor car sitting on the tracks hundreds of meters past the wreckage.

Aftermath:

At 11:03am, 2 minutes after the first call to emergency services, sirens howl through Eschede, alerting all available responders. 3 minutes later demands for support go out to the surrounding cities, as far as Hanover. The level of alarm is raised nearly every minute, by 11:10am the German Airforce sends a squadron of helicopters from a nearby air base to help evacuate severely injured survivors, helping the terribly insufficient 2 civilian rescue helicopters at the scene. Most of them are used to transport survivors, while one stays at the scene, airborne, as a flying control tower. A radio call credited to different people goes out at that time, asking surrounding dispatch centers to “send everyone you got until I tell you to stop sending them”. The radio-system as well as the cell phone service are completely overloaded and break down, telling responders and residents to turn off their mobile phones eventually allows the re-establishment of some communication. Around that time Miss Karl remembers finding a little girl pacing up and down the sidewalk on the edge of the wreckage, unwilling to come inside or even sit down for a moment. Eventually Miss Karl can find an EMT to look after the girl, she is later told that the child had a severe shock and a broken vertebrae in her neck. With more and more professional responders pouring into the little town the civilians start to retreat from the wreckage, due to her house’s vicinity to the site Miss Karl starts doing her best to support the responders and survivors, supplying water and coffee, holding infusion bags for patients awaiting transport. Other residents bring blankets for survivors, bed sheets for the dead. At 11:25am the red cross holds the evacuation of injured survivors, lacking coordination has wreaked havoc on the surrounding hospitals, slowing rescue and treatment of severely injured survivors.