How to rebuild trust after the high-speed rail disaster in Germany

On June 3, 1998, a German intercity express train (ICE) carrying 287 people derailed, killing 101 people. Afterwards, Germany’s relevant departments, which adhered to the “professionalism”, began near-average rescue and investigations. Not only did they replace all the wheels, but they also conducted a five-year technical investigation and legal trial.

After the completion of the trial in 2003, in addition to the destruction of particularly damaged cars, the available cars returned to public view. Among them, the first car with almost no damage maintained its appearance before the accident in 1998, and it became a teaching sample for the technical emergency response agency of the German Federal Government.

Although people once lost their confidence in the high-speed rail, the timely and transparent investigation and study of the German railway company, and the active communication with the media and the public, let people gradually regain their trust.

On June 3, 1998, a German intercity express train (ICE) carrying 287 people derailed, killing 101 people. Afterwards, Germany’s relevant departments, which adhered to the “professionalism”, began near-average rescue and investigations. Not only did they replace all the wheels, but they also conducted a five-year technical investigation and legal trial. Although people once lost their confidence in the high-speed rail, the timely and transparent investigation and study of the German railway company, and the active communication with the media and the public, let people gradually regain their trust.

A broken wheel of a train made a scar on a speeding German train.

On the morning of June 3, 1998, a German intercity express train (ICE) carrying 287 people was driven from Hamburg, Germany to Hamburg, and suddenly derailed when passing by the town of Ashdar. In just 180 seconds, a 200 km/h train rushed towards the trees and the bridge. The 300-ton double-lane bridge was completely collapsed and the train’s eight cars collided in order to squeeze only one carriage. length.

The train accident killed 101 people, 88 seriously injured and 106 minor injuries. The victims included two children. Six of the 18 survivors lost their mothers.

This is the worst high-speed rail accident so far. Witness Andrew Davies said that at the moment, "Everyone closed their eyes because they could not believe the tragic scene."

People can't believe it because the pile of cars that were scrapped into iron scrap is just the pride of the Germans. This country, known for its engineering design, made full use of ICE on June 2, 1991. For the Germans, this is not only a brand new railway system. “On the second anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the advanced high-speed rail symbolizes the bright future of German reunification.”

This series of high-tech German trains traveled at high speed for seven years. There was no record of fatalities. Until 1998, the wheel that passed through the town of Ashride began to collapse.

This broken wheel scratched the German train and once scratched the trust of the Germans. "But because the German Railways quickly made an open and transparent investigation and tried to improve mistakes, I feel I can trust it again," German reporter Stephen Woodslar said in an interview with the China Youth Daily reporter.

Like Steven, many Germans regained their trust in high-speed trains after the clash. Today, ICE is still the first choice for Germans. Every day, more than 210,000 passengers choose to ride ICE and travel between cities in Germany and Europe.

“Safety first is the primary responsibility of the railway company. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the operation of the German high-speed railway. Until today, the data still shows that in Germany, traveling by train is the safest mode of transportation.” German Railways (hereinafter referred to as “Germany” Iron ") Spokesman Hanna Speanus told the China Youth Daily reporter. The German train did not slow down because of this wheel, but continued to move at a high speed with a more positive attitude.

Under the negligence of the German Railways, Death evaded all searches. Together with the 287 people on the train, they drove to the end of the road to destruction. The German journalist Stephen Woodslar raised the high-speed rail in the 1990s. Live your own praise, "It is a symbol of high technology in Germany."

On June 2, 1991, the German high-speed railway started running with excitement and praise. The speed of up to 250 kilometers per hour, like the train compartment of an airplane business class, and the extremely high security claimed by the railways, became the capital that the Germans were proud of. It not only greatly shortens the transit time between cities, but also gives the passengers luxurious enjoyment.

According to Detroit, ICE shipped a total of 10 million passengers in 1992. By 2010, this figure has jumped to 78 million. After two years of traffic, the daily passenger load exceeded 65,000 passengers. More importantly, this German train maintained a record of zero fatal accidents for a period of seven years after its opening.

However, this wheel took away the ICE's all-time safety record for the past seven years. It was more like the death of the 101 passengers, and it once took away the "tech worship" of the Germans.

The first to discover the existence of the wheels of death is the presence of Yogdiman on this train. When the train traveled to a place about 6 kilometers south of Ashdewei, he suddenly saw a huge metal bar popped out of the seat armrest between the wife and his son, and the floor of the carriage was pulled out of a large mouth.

According to subsequent investigations, this metal strip is the outer rim of a wheel on the third axle of the second carriage, because metal fatigue has occurred due to frequent use for a long time, resulting in metal burst and sudden burst of outer steel rims. Plugged into the box in the middle of the car Jogeeman.

Jogeeman quickly left the car to find the conductor. However, just one minute after he and the conductor rushed back to the box, the train passed the switch of the railway line, and the broken rim of the wheel brought back the unreliable rail on the switch. Insert the car body and break the top of the carriage, causing the front and the rear body to separate and the train to derail.

When Yogdiman and the conductor rushed back to the box, the second train derailed and crashed into the trees. After that, the car broke the 300-ton bridge, and the main body of the train collapsed in the rear section of the third carriage. Afterwards, all the cars were derailed and squeezed together. The powerful impact killed two German railway employees who were working under the bridge.

This wheel is like a dead god hiding under the train, laughing and waiting for the death sentence. However, this unpopular death could not have appeared on this train.

Originally used on ICE was a single-drum steel drum cut from German proprietary steel, but due to the loud noise generated by this type of wheel and the vehicle's body was clearly shaken, the German passengers felt that they were shaking. Akira's dining car was too unsightly, so Detiex replaced the wheels with double-hub steel wheels with steel bars, because of the rubber layer, which can reduce noise and make the operation more stable.

However, the disadvantage of this double hub steel wheel is that it is prone to metal fatigue, which in turn causes metal fracture. In the autumn of 1997, the German tram company had informed the German passenger car that such a wheel would have problems and that the wheels should be replaced more frequently. However, the German railway had only used a phrase “We did not find metal fatigue”.

The last thing that left the Wheel of Death was the staff of the German Railways who inspected the equipment. The prosecutor stated that they “should have been able to spot cracks in routine inspections of trains,” but because “not enough attention was paid to wheel noise”, no ultrasonic testing was used during inspections, and only one flashlight was used for inspection.

In this way, under the carelessness of the German Railway, the death evaded all searches, and together with the 287 people on the train, they headed for the final road to destruction.

The on-site rescue and search operations lasted for 3 days, while technical investigations and legal trials continued for 5 years after the accident. Germany was shocked. German "Spiegel" weekly used the "Titanic incident in Germany" to describe the accident. The article stated that the Asherd incident marked the end of the "tech worship" by the Germans.

Although "technical worship" has been shaken, Germany, which still upholds "professionalism," has begun a nearly amazing rescue and investigation. Matthias Weissmann, the then German Minister of Transport, assured the German public in front of the media: "Never allow for clearance, do not allow for half-staffing and vagueness, and must be thoroughly investigated."

6-minutes after the accident, police cars, fire engines and ambulances that arrived at the scene arrived at the scene and the German Red Cross Rescue Coordination Center announced that a nearby area had entered a state of emergency.

- After 20 minutes of the incident, in order to ensure that seriously injured persons could be rescued and transferred for the first time, DT announced that it would stop operating and stopped all trains after 7 minutes.

——After an hour and a half of the incident, all the seriously injured people who were found were transferred to nearby hospitals. 24 helicopters, 60 health workers and 150 rescue workers arrived at the scene. The tent was quickly erected on site to treat minor injuries at the local site.

- After the incident, the German Joint Information Center (GAST) and the Emergency Information Center (EPIC) opened a unified personnel identification and missing report telephone. The telecommunications communication system also opened two special bands for use in accident rescue.

- About two hours after the incident, three military tanks of the German Federal Army and a 40-tonne fire-fighting crane transferred from Hanover excavated debris on the site and began work to dig out the victims.

- The search and rescue work lasted for three days before it ended. About 1900 rescue workers participated in the rescue, including British troops stationed nearby.

In order to ensure the survival of survivors, the German Railways quickly appointed a commissioner after the incident, granting him 5 million Deutsch- ken for emergency funding to ensure the first-time treatment needs. Subsequently, two donation accounts were established and 800,000 marks were provided. In addition to the assistance fund, until 2008, DT has paid 32 million euros as compensation for accidents and expects to pay 10 million euros in the future. At that time, Johannes Ludwig, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the German Railways, visited many families in trouble and expressed their condolences to the victims.

On-site rescue and search work is over, and a five-year technical investigation and legal trial has only just begun. The German Federal Railways Authority is the authority that oversees the railway and its associated infrastructure. Once there is evidence that the railway company has failed to exercise due diligence to prevent the crisis and ensure safety, the Federal Railway Administration will be involved as a regulatory agency. Under its organization, an independent investigation team was formed to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the cause of the accident.

The procuratorate also initiated public prosecutions against related engineers. The prosecutor's office collected documentary evidence such as accident data and technical reports. By 2000, the document of the Ashcroft accident had exceeded 600 folders.

At that time, the media criticized that it was the ordinary employees of Dedetsu who had been prosecuted. However, such a serious accident occurred and the high-level officials of the German railways should take responsibility.

In 1999, after a year and three months of the accident, the president of the German railway company Johannes Ludwig was dismissed. The "Der Spiegel" weekly commented that the investigation of the accidents that have been continuously carried out proves that there are major negligence and negligence in the German Railways, resulting in the eventual disaster. The Ashtrad high-speed train accident was undoubtedly the main reason for his dismissal. Endless labor negotiations and unsatisfactory operational benefits were only the last driving force for dismissal.

The trial of relevant engineers continues. As the accident trial became a hot spot for public attention, when the trial session was held in 2002, the trial was not held in the court but in the city council hall. In 2003, the trial ended, and the engineer was found not guilty. Each person was paid 10,000 euros in compensation. Although the survivors and the families of the victims were dissatisfied with the verdict, they thought that “DET is very stingy on the issue of compensation”, but after all, the most tragic high-speed rail tragedy in history experienced a thorough inventory of up to 5 years, and it was finally in the technical investigation and law. The area of ​​trial is marked with a full stop.

"I don't think that Dedication hopes that this will happen. It is also very frustrating to encounter this kind of thing. However, after all this happens, they are using professionalism," said Stephen.

On the second day of the incident, Deutsche Railway reduced the speed of high-speed trains across the board and stopped all trains of the same model from hiding in the ICE trains. It shook the Germans' "technical cult" of high technology, resulting in the accident. High-speed trains generated suspicion and the number of passengers dropped sharply.

“For ICE passengers, the Ashtrax incident did leave a shadow, but the German Railways took the initiative to disclose information after the incident and took a long time to study how to change the construction of the high-speed train wheels. I think the German Railways are Afterwards, the performance was satisfactory,” said Jürgen Sigman, professor of railway research at the Institute of Transport at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, in an interview with the China Youth Daily.

On the second day after the incident, Ashley reduced the speed of high-speed trains across the board, and comprehensively checked the safety. Following the request of the Federal Railways Bureau, all trains of the same type were stopped and subjected to ultrasonic safety testing. All double-hub steel wheels with steel bars on the same model train were replaced by single-hub steel wheels cut from a single piece of steel.

Because the Federal Railways required comprehensive safety inspections, Germany implemented emergency train schedules, multiple trains were cancelled, multiple lines were shortened, and it was not until more than a month after the accident that it basically resumed domestic rail operations. The German passengers did not experience the original operating status of the train until after all the wheels were replaced in November of the following year.

Although the German Railways have leading technologies in rubber tires, today they are still afraid to resume the use of such tires.

“To a railway company, ensuring safety is a top priority,” said Moritz Huckblick, a spokesperson for the press office of the German Federal Railways, told the China Youth Daily reporter.

Although death was hiding in the wheel, it was not just the wheel that was changed. In 1999, according to the investigation and research on the cause of the accident, Ashley announced a new railway safety program. This security program became the reference for many countries to carry out high-speed railways.

For example, the program pointed out that due to the train crashed into a bridge during the accident, resulting in heavy casualties, the German Railways stipulated that the newly built railways should avoid tunnels and bridges and other facilities.

In addition, in the new scheme, Deutsche Bahn stipulates that ultrasonic safety inspections should be carried out regularly on the trains, and at least two staff members must be jointly inspected.

Since then, Deutsche Railways has been more cautious about security risks. After a train accident in 2008, Deutsche Bahn conducted a test frequency 10 times higher than in the past to find potential safety hazards. The German Federal Railway Administration, which is responsible for supervision, now requires all wheels that travel more than 30,000 kilometers to be checked every week.

In the rescue process of Asherd’s accident, great difficulties were caused because the windows were difficult to break. So, a few months after the accident, Detiec set up an escape glass window in each car of the ICE train that could be broken in an emergency. This window could only be seen in large cars. .

“The cause of the Ashtrad accident has been thoroughly investigated from the technical and operational levels. The focus now is on how to prevent the recurrence of the same incident and impose stricter safety regulations. The lessons learned from the Ashtrad accident have been Integrate into everyday rules and safety standards," said Moritz Huckblick, a spokesperson for the German Federal Railways Agency.

In Germany, which is approximately the size of Yunnan Province, fast, affordable and safe ICE is still the most used travel tool.

"I didn't expect that there would be no risk for a train that rides several hundred kilometers an hour. But after the bad things happened, Detiem disclosed many reports during the investigation. Every day, we can see the follow-up situation in the news. They also cooperated in the legal investigation process. They conducted an open and transparent investigation and quickly improved the train. I am very satisfied with the current ICE. I am very comfortable with high-speed trains,” said Stephen.

Although "technical worship" was shaken, Stephen believes that the professionalism of correcting truth and respecting truth is also fundamental to Germany's pride.

According to Professor Jürgen Sigman, the number of people on the ICE trip began to recover after the accident occurred six months later, and has since continued to increase, even exceeding the number of people before the accident.

The damaged bodies were not discarded. They are the most valuable "teaching materials" in the eyes of investigators.

It has been 13 years since the Ashride accident. Where the dead nerves have passed, it is the power of life.

The body that was punctured by Death Wheel did not go away with the passage of time. Due to the fact that the front haulage of the train did not suffer much damage, it returned to the tracks shortly after the incident and ran between German cities.

While the remaining car body was damaged, it was not discarded as scrap iron. During investigations and trials that lasted up to five years after the incident, the investigative agencies will study and collect evidence. In the eyes of relevant investigators, they are the most valuable "teaching materials."

After the completion of the trial in 2003, in addition to the destruction of particularly damaged cars, the available cars returned to public view.

Among them, the first car with almost no damage maintained its appearance before the accident in 1998, and it became a teaching sample for the technical emergency response agency of the German Federal Government.

The rear tractor head of the train is stored at a locomotive repair shop for a long period of time, providing spare parts for other damaged fronts. In 2007, the rear tractor head was reassembled with the other two damaged tractor heads, becoming a new tractor head and returning to the rails again.

About 101 cherry trees have been planted around the tracks that Death has walked through. According to the official website of the Ashidad Memorial of the Accident, 101 cherry trees represent 101 lives that have passed away. In June each year, bright red cherry fruits and luxuriant branches reflect each other, symbolizing that the victims of the accident support each other and take care of each other.

In 2001, the local government erected an 8-meter-long, 2.1-meter-high monument beside the scene of the accident. It was engraved with the names, birth dates and hometowns of 101 victims, and an introduction to the accident.

In June each year, there are both the anniversary of the official operation of the German high-speed train and the National Day of the Ashride accident. At this point, the cherry tree begins to produce results. The cherries covered with branches "guarded" a speeding train not far from the tracks.