Review of high-speed rail accidents in Germany: investigation and test of damaged car bodies for 5 years

A train wheel with a broken rim left a scar on a speeding German train.

On the morning of June 3rd, 1998, a German intercity express train (ICE) with 287 passengers was bound for Hamburg from Munich, Germany, and suddenly derailed when passing near the small town of Axel. In just 180 seconds, the train with a speed of 200 kilometers per hour rushed into trees and bridges, and the 300-ton double-track bridge completely collapsed. Eight carriages of the train collided in turn, squeezing only the length of one carriage.

The train accident caused 10 1 people to die, 88 people were seriously injured, 106 people were slightly injured, including two children. 18 Six of the surviving children lost their mothers.

This is by far the deadliest high-speed rail accident. Witness andrew davis said that at that moment, "everyone closed their eyes because they couldn't believe the tragic scene in front of them".

It's unbelievable, because this pile of cars turned into scrap iron is the pride of the Germans. This country, which is famous for its engineering design, was put into full use on June 2nd 199 1. For 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 Germany after reunification."

This German high-tech train has been running at a high speed for 7 years, and there is no record of any fatal accident. Until 1998, the wheel passing through Ashdod town began to collapse.

This broken wheel scratched the German train and once scratched the trust of the Germans. "But because Deutsche Bahn quickly conducted an open and transparent investigation and tried to improve its mistakes, I think I can trust it again." German journalist Steven Woods Lal said in an interview with China Youth Daily.

Like Steven, many Germans regained their trust in high-speed trains after the shocking collision. Today, ice is still the first choice for Germans to travel. Every day, more than 265,438 438+ 10 million passengers choose to take the ICE to shuttle between cities in Germany and Europe.

"Safety first is the primary responsibility of the railway company. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the German high-speed railway. To this day, the data still shows that traveling by train is the safest mode of transportation in Germany. " Henna Spanus, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bahn (hereinafter referred to as "Deutsche Bahn"), told the China Youth Daily reporter. German trains did not slow down because of this wheel, but continued to drive at high speed in a more positive attitude.

Under the careless protection of Deutsche Bahn, Death escaped all searches and sailed to the end of the road of destruction with 287 people on the train.

Steven Woods Lal, a German journalist, mentioned the high-speed rail in the 1990s, and it is still hard to hide his admiration. "It is a symbol of German high technology." .

On June 2nd, 199 1, the German high-speed railway started to run, which was full of amazement and admiration. The top speed is 250 kilometers per hour, just like the train car in the business class of the plane and the high safety claimed by the railway, which has become the capital that Germans are proud of. It not only greatly shortens the transportation time between cities, but also brings luxury to passengers.

According to the statistics of Deutsche Bahn, ICE carried/kloc-0 million passengers in 1992 * *, and by 20 10, this number had jumped to 78 million passengers. It has been open to traffic for two years, with daily passenger traffic exceeding 65,000 passengers. More importantly, in the seven years after its opening to traffic, this German train has maintained a record of zero death.

However, this wheel has taken away the excellent safety record of ICE since it was opened to traffic for seven years, even killing 10 1 passengers like a god of death, and once took away the "technical worship" of the Germans.

The first person who discovered the existence of the death wheel was Jorge Diman who took this train. When the train was about 6 kilometers south of Ashgate, he suddenly saw a huge metal bar pop out of the armrest between his wife and son, and a big hole was poked in the floor of the carriage.

According to later investigation, this metal strip is the outer steel ring of a wheel on the third axle of the second car. Because of the long-term frequent use, the metal was fatigued and burst, and the suddenly burst outer steel ring was inserted into Jorge Diman's box in the middle of the carriage.

Jorge Diman quickly left the carriage to find the conductor. However, just one minute after he and the conductor rushed back to the box, the train passed the turnout of the changed railway line, and the broken wheel outer steel ring hooked the unreliable rail on the turnout, inserted into the car body, and broke through the top of the car, resulting in the separation of the front and the subsequent car body, and the train derailed.

When Jorge Diman and the conductor rushed back to the box, the second car of the train derailed and crashed into the bushes, and the subsequent car broke the bridge weighing 300 tons. The main body of the overpass collapsed and was pressed against the middle and rear section of the third car. After that, all the carriages derailed and crowded together, and the strong impact caused two German railway employees who were working under the bridge to die.

This wheel is like a god of death hiding under the train, grinning and waiting for the death sentence. And this unwelcome death is impossible on this train.

Initially, ICE was made of a single-hub steel wheel cut from a whole piece of steel by German proprietary technology. However, due to the noise generated by this kind of wheel and the obvious shaking of the car body, German passengers feel that "the rickety dining car is too unsightly", so the German railway company replaced the wheel with a double-hub steel wheel with strip steel, because there is a rubber layer inside, which can reduce the noise and make the operation more stable.

However, the disadvantage of this kind of dual-hub steel ring is that it is easy to produce metal fatigue and lead to metal fracture. 1in the autumn of 997, Deutsche Tramwork told Deutsche Bahn that this kind of wheel would have problems and should be replaced more frequently, but Deutsche Bahn made a hasty decision with only one sentence: "We didn't find metal fatigue".

The last person to let go of the wheel of death was the staff of Deutsche Bahn who was in charge of inspecting the equipment. The procuratorate said that they "should have been able to find cracks in the routine inspection of trains", but due to "insufficient attention to the abnormal sound of wheels", they did not use ultrasonic detection in the inspection, but only used flashlights to check.

In this way, under the careless protection of Deutsche Bahn, death escaped all the searches and, together with 287 people on the train, headed for the end of the road to destruction.

On-site rescue and search work lasted for three days, while technical investigation and legal trial lasted for five years.

After the accident, Germany was shocked. Germany's "Der Spiegel" magazine used the "German Titanic Incident" to describe the accident. The article said that the Ashdod incident marked the end of German "technology worship".

Although "technical worship" has been shaken, Germany, which still upholds "professionalism", has started an almost amazing rescue and investigation. Matthias weismann, then Germany's Minister of Transport, assured the German public in front of the media: "You must never get away with it, and you must check it out."

Six minutes after the accident, police cars, fire engines and ambulances arrived at the scene, and the German Red Cross Rescue Coordination Center declared the neighborhood in a state of emergency.

Twenty minutes after the incident, in order to ensure that the seriously injured can be rescued and transferred in the first time, Deutsche Bahn announced that it would stop operating and stop all trains after seven minutes.

An hour and a half after the incident, all seriously injured people were transferred to a nearby hospital, and 24 helicopters, 60 medical workers and 150 rescuers arrived at the scene. Tents were quickly set up at the scene to treat the slightly injured on the spot.

-After the incident, the German Joint Information Center (GAST) and the Emergency Information Center (EPIC) specially set up a unified telephone number for personnel identification and missing report. The telecommunication system has also set up two special frequency bands for accident rescue.

-About two hours after the incident, three military tanks of the German Federal Army and a 40-ton fire crane dispatched from Hanover dug up the wreckage at the scene, and then began to dig up the remains of the victims.

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

In order to ensure the treatment of the survivors, Deutsche Bahn sent a Commissioner soon after the incident, giving him the right to control the emergency funds of 5 million marks to ensure the first-time treatment needs. Subsequently, two donation accounts were set up and DM 800,000 was provided. In addition to the aid fund, as of 2008, Deutsche Bahn has paid 32 million euros as accident compensation, and it is expected that it will pay10 million euros in the future. Johannes Ludwig, then chairman of the board of directors of Deutsche Bahn, visited many families in distress and expressed condolences to the victims.

The on-site rescue and search work has ended, while the five-year technical investigation and legal trial have just begun. The German Federal Railway Administration is the authoritative organization to supervise the railway and its related infrastructure. Once there is evidence that the railway company has failed to prevent the crisis and ensure safety, the Federal Railway Administration, as a regulatory agency, will intervene in the investigation. Under its organization, an independent investigation team was set up to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the cause of the accident.

The procuratorate also prosecuted the relevant engineers. The procuratorate collects accident data, technical reports and other written evidence. By 2000, there were more than 600 folders of documents about the Ashgate accident.

At that time, the media criticized that only ordinary employees of Deutsche Bahn were prosecuted, and the top management of Deutsche Bahn should be responsible for such a serious accident.

1999, 1 Three years and three months after the accident, Johannes Ludwig, the chairman of Deutsche Bahn, was dismissed. Der Spiegel commented that the ongoing investigation into the cause of the accident proved that the German railway company had gross negligence and dereliction of duty, which led to the ultimate disaster. Axelford's high-speed rail accident is undoubtedly the main reason for his dismissal, and endless labor-management negotiations and unsatisfactory operating efficiency are only the last motivation for his dismissal.

The trial of the relevant engineers is still going on. Because the accident trial has become a hot spot of public concern, when the presiding judge opened the court in 2002, the trial was not held in the court, but in the lobby of the city Council. In 2003, at the end of the trial, these engineers were acquitted and each paid 1 10,000 euros in compensation. Although the survivors and the families of the victims were dissatisfied with the verdict and thought that "Deutsche Bahn was very stingy in compensation", the worst high-speed rail tragedy in history finally came to an end in the field of technical investigation and legal trial after five years of thorough investigation.

"I don't think Deutsche Bahn wants this to happen. It's frustrating to encounter such a thing, but in any case, after it happened, they are treating it professionally." Stephen said.

On the second day of the incident, Deutsche Bahn reduced the speed of all high-speed trains and stopped all trains of the same model.

The ice train where the dead were hiding shook the Germans' "technical worship" of high technology, which led to people's doubts about high-speed trains once after the accident, and the number of passengers dropped sharply.

"For the passengers of ICE, the Ashdod accident really left a shadow. However, Deutsche Bahn took the initiative to disclose information in time after the incident, and spent a long time studying how to change the structure of high-speed train wheels. I think Deutsche Bahn's performance in post-processing is satisfactory. " Juergen sigman, a professor specializing in railway research at the Transportation Research Institute of Berlin Technical University, said in an interview with China Youth Daily.

On the second day after the Ashdod incident, Deutsche Bahn reduced the speed of all high-speed trains and comprehensively checked the safety. Subsequently, according to the requirements of the Federal Railway Administration, all trains of the same model were stopped and ultrasonic safety inspection was carried out, and all the double-hub steel wheels with steel strips on 59 trains of the same model were replaced with single-hub steel wheels cut from a whole piece of steel.

Due to the requirements of the Federal Railway Administration for comprehensive safety inspection, Germany has implemented an emergency train schedule, with many trains cancelled and many lines shortened. It was not until more than a month after the accident that the domestic railway operation basically resumed. German passengers did not experience the original running state of the train again until June 165438+ 10 of the following year.

Although German railways have advanced technology in rubber tires, they still dare not use these tires today.

"For a railway company, ensuring safety is the most important first priority." Maurize Huckbrink, spokesman of the press office of the German Federal Railway Administration, told the China Youth Daily reporter.

Although death is hidden in the wheel, it is not just the wheel that has been changed. From 65438 to 0999, Deutsche Bahn published a new railway safety plan based on the investigation and research on the cause of Axel accident. This safety plan has become a reference for many countries to develop high-speed railways since then.

For example, the plan pointed out that due to the heavy casualties caused by the train hitting the bridge in the accident, the German railway company stipulated that new railways should avoid tunnels, bridges and other facilities in the future.

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

Since then, Deutsche Bahn has been more cautious about security risks. After a train accident in 2008, Deutsche Bahn implemented a detection frequency 10 times higher than before to find possible safety hazards. Now, the German Federal Railway Administration, which is in charge of supervision, requires all wheels with a journey of more than 30,000 kilometers to be inspected every week.

However, in the rescue process of the Ashdod accident, it is very difficult because the window is difficult to be broken. So, a few months after the accident, Deutsche Bahn set up escape windows in every car of the ICE train, which could be broken in an emergency, and this kind of window was only available in large cars before.

"The cause of the Ashdod accident has been thoroughly investigated from the technical and operational levels. The focus now is how to prevent the same accident from happening again and implement stricter safety regulations. The lessons learned from the Ashgate accident have been incorporated into daily rules and safety standards. " Maurize Huckbrink, a spokesman for the German Federal Railway Administration, said.

In Germany, which is about the size of Yunnan Province, ice with high speed, moderate price and high safety is still the most commonly used travel tool.

"I didn't expect that there was no risk in taking a train with a speed of several hundred kilometers per hour. However, after the bad things happened, Deutsche Bahn released a number of reports during the investigation, and the follow-up situation can be seen on the news every day, and it is also very cooperative in the legal investigation process. They investigated openly and transparently and quickly improved the train. I feel very satisfied when I see the ice now, and I feel very at ease when I take the high-speed rail. " Stephen said.

Although the "worship of technology" has wavered, Steven believes that the professionalism of correcting mistakes and respecting truth is also the foundation of German pride.

According to Professor Juergen sigman, six months after the accident, the number of people traveling by ice began to recover, and then began to increase continuously, even exceeding the number before the accident.

The damaged car bodies have not been discarded, and they are the most valuable "teaching materials" in the eyes of investigators.

It's been 13 years since the Ashdod accident, but the place where death passed was the re-emergence of life force.

The car body punctured by the wheel of death did not disappear with the passage of time. The front tractor head of the train was not damaged too much, so it returned to the track shortly after the accident and ran between German cities.

Although the rest of the car body was damaged, it was not discarded as scrap iron. During the five-year investigation and trial after the incident, it was used by the investigation organ for research and evidence collection. In the eyes of relevant investigators, they are the most valuable "teaching materials".

After the test in 2003, except the damaged car, the usable car returned to the public view again.

The first car was almost intact, and it remained the same as before the accident of 1998, which became the teaching sample of the German federal government's technical emergency agency.

The rear tractor head of the train is stored in the locomotive repair shop for a long time to provide spare parts for other damaged heads. In 2007, the rear tractor head and two other damaged tractor heads were reassembled into a new tractor head and returned to the track for Mercedes-Benz again.

10 1 cherry trees have been planted around the tracks where death walked. According to the official website of Ashgate Accident Memorial, 10 1 a cherry tree stands for1kloc-0/a lost life. Every June, bright red cherry fruits and lush branches shine each other, symbolizing the mutual support and care of the victims in the accident.

At 200 1, the local government set up a monument 8 meters long and 2. 1 meter high beside the accident site, engraved with the name, date of birth, place of origin of the victims and an introduction to the accident.

Every year in June, there is a memorial day for the official operation of German high-speed trains and a national mourning day for the Ashdod accident. At this time, the cherry tree also began to bear fruit. Cherry covered with branches "guards" a speeding train on the tracks not far away.

The most elegant memorial service

The night of July 25th undoubtedly belongs to Wenzhou Century Plaza. Someone dressed in white and holding a white candle is obviously prepared. More people are still the same, such as old people wearing slippers, aunts wearing fitness clothes and children wearing roller skates. ...

There is no organizer, no special ceremony, only the most personalized expression. That night, thousands of people gathered together and spontaneously paid homage to the victims of July 23. Someone silently lit candles; Some people keep candles in their hearts, while others arrange hundreds of candles in a long track leading to heaven. ...

Warm yellow candlelight is not the only color. A group of students spelled out the names of Mr. Xiang Yu 'an's family of three with colorful light sticks, and the colorful light that penetrated the night seemed to recall the colorful life of this family. Although these lights can't illuminate the two-year-old item in the hospital bed a few kilometers away, everyone who comes here prays for this tenacious little girl.

This night, the candlelight was a little bit, and some passers-by stopped, pressed their mobile phones and held them high, becoming part of the starlight-at this moment, this is the only way for them to express their grief.

More and more people, some driving BMW Mercedes-Benz, some pushing scooters and some pushing baby carriages, gathered in one place and expressed the same wish.

This night, it seems that there is only Wenzhou time.

Some faces in this square can't be ignored. The face of Yang Feng, a man who lost five relatives, was almost distorted by crying in mourning. The child held by his parents, with his tender face and a candle in his hand, learned to understand the word "death" for the first time.

There are also the faces of street vendors who hide from the urban management during the day and appear at night. Ms Yu from Hubei has been selling small toys and mineral water. But tonight, all her Kongming lanterns were given away for free. She choked up and said, I'm just an ordinary person. I just want to express my sympathy for the victims.

This sentence is the reason why thousands of people come together. This is also the most beautiful, simple and natural truth in the world at this moment.

For many people, such a square is a lecture hall with the theme of human nature. It tells the story of life and death, and it evokes the simplest compassion in people's hearts. Please be quiet for a while and let the dead go home.

Hope is half life, indifference is half death.

More and more people, both acquaintances and strangers. In the crowd, you and I can't be separated. At this moment, even inside and outside the square, inside and outside Wenzhou, thousands of Qian Qian people have only one expression and one blessing.

Some voices are destined to be remembered. A group of students are singing school songs to pay homage to their classmates who are far away in heaven, and several men are singing "Stubborn" to cheer for the living ... Finally, more and more voices converge into one voice-the national anthem. In the song, there are tears sliding across the wrinkled face of the old man and the smooth satin face of the child.

There will never be a shortage of poets on this occasion. A group of people chanted poems loudly: "No matter where you are, I will find you, hand in hand, and live and die together!" A middle-aged man with a big belly stood in the middle of the crowd and recited his poem loudly: "Save one, save one, don't let the child's smile be buried underground for a long time, do you hear, do you hear ..."

Such a poem constitutes the strongest voice of millions of people this night.

At this moment, people will find that this is not only a memorial service, but also a hope for a better future. The expression of these individuals eventually merged into a powerful public collective expression. This ocean of candlelight is also an ocean of public opinion.

In the collective mourning, we can see the growth of civic spirit.

By the end of the memorial service, all the candles had been extinguished, but the crowd did not want to disperse. Children, old people, strangers and acquaintances are all together. They gently handed a bottle of water to the media staff who were holding a camera to record all this, and whispered thank you. What an ordinary voice, at this moment, touched the young cameraman.

Please don't leave the camera, there is a touching scene: the crowd dispersed, and several "post-90 s" students squatted down and cleaned the candle oil on the ground with coins and paper towels. They want to "clean" the city, just as they come gently.

This is the most elegant and beautiful memorial service.

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