The Day the Future Died: The 2006 Lathen Transrapid Collision
By: Max S
Tags: Crash, Disaster, Trains, Germany, Technology

The Aftermath

Seconds after the accident one of the dispatchers can be heard asking what happened, his colleague sums it up: “We forgot to move the maintenance car.” The crew members in the back of the train are barely injured, a minute after the accident one of them radios dispatch. “There was an accident. Send help.” Dispatch obliges, alarms the facility’s fire department. Around the same time Mr. Hegge, voluntary firefighter, is headed to the grocery store with his mother. He hears a bang and sees smoke rise up behind some trees. After dropping off his mother he heads to the origin of the smoke. He compares what he saw to a plane crashing onto a giant shelf. The train is torn apart almost to the end of the leading unit, parts of torn metal and destroyed interior dressings have fallen off the elevated track. A smell of burned rubber fills the air, sparks emit from the wreckage. He fears an explosion could kill survivors aboard the smoking, heavily damaged train, and he can see people moving inside the train, trying to punch or kick out windows. But he cannot reach the train. He calls the fire department, his descriptions trigger the needed large-scale response. Up above him the two employees on the maintenance car regain consciousness, moving to the driver’s cabin saved their life. They hear banging on the underside of their wrecked vehicle, after unscrewing the floorboards they manage to pull 3 survivors from the forward section of the Transrapid. The employees in the rear of the train use emergency slides to escape, similar to those found on aircraft, 15 minutes after the collision firefighters, ambulances and a crane reach the scene.

A photo taken shortly after responders arrive, using ladders to reach the smoking wreckage.

In minutes 200 responders have reached the scene, while medical personell and firefighters start cutting up the wreckage and trying to pull out survivors along with victims the police does their best to keep relatives and random civilians from the wreckage, directing the former to the visitor center where they give briefings every 30 minutes. The victims are lined up on the beam, photographed for identification and then lowered to the ground. By the early afternoon the last ambulances leave, all survivors have been recovered. The chief superintendent (“Kriminalhauptkommissar”) of the Osnabrück Police Department assembles all relatives he can find at the visitor center and reads off a lists. It’s the survivors, anyone not on that list is dead. Some relatives scream and cry, others just quietly sit down. The fire department brought chaplains to take care of the relatives, help handle the shock.

23 people are dead, including 2 crew members.

Among them Mr. Schubsky, six employees from the elderly care service and the invited couple, leaving their 4 children orphaned.

8 passengers escape the train with injuries, as do the two people on the maintenance car.

A crane removes a piece of the wall, allowing access to more victims.

At 6:30pm Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, arrives at the site. She talks to one of the firemen, both can be seen fighting against tears. She leaves the site soon after, not wanting to be in the way of the experts. The wreckage is illuminated with floodlights while relatives brought candles and flowers to a makeshift memorial on the edge of the barriers set up a short distance away from the site.

Wooden crosses replaced the flowers and candles, marking the point of impact.

The blame is quickly placed on the two dispatchers, both are arrested the day after the accident. Their negligence, forgetting about the maintenance car, killed 2 dozen people and injured nearly a dozen more, most of which severely. After interrogations and evaluations both are placed in protective custody, as they are seen to be at a high risk of suicide. Charges are also filed against their supervisors as well as the CEOs of the facility. Had Mr. Schubsky survived the collision he would have found himself charged as well, since he departed despite technically being easily within sight of the maintenance car. The order alone from the dispatch center does not start the train, pressing the button to start is still at the discretion of the crew member in the front of the train.

A photo from the station looking towards the site of the accident, the maintenance car parked near the white box in the distance.

Four days after the accident Bishop Franz-Josef Bode holds a memorial service at the local church, attended by 1500 people. He reads from a letter addressed to Mr. Schubsky, written by his daughter. He talks about he and the chaplains on site were asked where god was that day, how he could let that happen. He admits, there is no good answer. He does not spell it out, but essentially going to the limits of new technology always holds a risk, human error cannot be eliminated. Later that day a recording from the service is aired on television, with lots of people tuning in.

The day after the service the papers are full of messages to the victims, the tragedy shook the small town to the core.

Most of the wreckage of the train sits on the track until November 2006, police patrols try to keep tragedy tourists away from it, before it’s removed on flatbed trucks.

The investigation finds several flaws in the operation. Mr. Schubsky couldn’t communicate with the maintenance car as the train and the maintenance car used separate radio systems, an electronic safety-mechanism that avoids power being given to the section occupied by the maintenance car wasn’t used (presumably) to save time.

In May 2008 the two supervisors were sentenced to pay 24 and 20 thousand Euros respectively (29 and 24 thousand USD). They are found guilty as they discouraged the use of the electronic safety-mechanism that would have kept the Transrapid from reaching the maintenance car. The trial against the two dispatchers is put on hold, their mental health has deteriorated to the point of not being fit for trial anymore. They’re eventually sentenced in June 2011, receiving suspended jail sentences of 18 and 12 months respectively.

While the facility looses the public transportation permits after the accident some testing restarts in Juli 2008. In May 2009 the newly arrived Transrapid 09 is allowed to take passengers around the course, but no longer from the general public.

The site today

Part of the straight section in 2017, starting to show signs of disuse.

Usage of the site ends in 2010, in late November 2011 the last 60 employees are let go. The accident did serious damage to the image of the Transrapid, except for one line in China none of the proposed routes ever materialized. The track is meant to be removed, the rest of the facility is meant to be reused.

Regardless the track still sits abandoned in 2020 as discussions about who pays how much for the removal continue. Already, the project cost 1.4 billion Euros/1.7 billion USD with nothing to really show for it. A revival is impossible, the electrical systems have been removed from the tracks already. The discussion-point are the 16m/52ft deep footers.

The official memorial, unveiled in 2007 opposite the station, is engraved with the names of the victims and surrounded by 23 beeches. The cracked stone is meant to symbolize the disruption in the lives of relatives.

The facility itself lies relatively untouched, along with the official memorial next to it. The forward section of Transrapid 08 is scrapped after the accident, the center section is stored at an unknown location and the rear sits at the facility, inaccessible for the public.

The forward part of Transrapid 07, the part that was on display at Munich Airport, sits in the yard of the facility. While the outside shows severe signs of abandonment the interior is reported to still be pristine.

In 2017 Transrapid 09, made for a route in Munich that was cancelled the same year the train was built, is bought by relatives of the system’s inventor for around 200 thousand Euros and shipped off to their sausage factory in nearby Nortrup. The interior was mostly removed, part of it is now a conference room, the rest a museum. A video (German language) of the transport can be found here: https://youtu.be/ZJ-x6ms2zdI

Transrapid 09 sitting in it’s final resting place outside the Kemper factory. This marks the end of the Transrapid program.

China

In 2002 the Shanghai Maglev Train opens to the public, a 30.5km/19mi public Transrapid connection. Transporting passengers at up to 431kph/268mph this train, based on the Transrapid 08, was meant to be a “working prototype” of sorts, instead it remained the only Transrapid to ever be in public service. In 2011 a train completely constructed was introduced to service, meant to replace the German-made one.

The Shanghai Maglev Transrapid in operation.

Transrapid routes in Germany, the Netherlands, England, the USA, Switzerland or Iran never went beyond the planning stages, with Munich’s planned route to the airport getting the furthest with the train being built. All but the third generation are preserved in some way.

Drone footage of the abandoned facility in 2020.

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