S-Bahn crash near Schäftlarn: S7 has long been known as a "problem line".

Created: 02/15/2022, 12:40 p.m

By: Dirk Walter

A head-on crash of two S-Bahn trains near Schäftlarn claims one fatality.

Was it a terrible accident with an announcement?

The route has been considered risky for years.

Munich – Critics have been complaining about a serious shortcoming of the Munich S-Bahn network for years: numerous routes are only single track, a total of 31 percent.

Another 34 percent of the S-Bahn network is burdened with "mixed traffic".

That means: In addition to S-Bahn trains, there are also regional and freight trains.

As early as 2010, the S-Bahn management warned of this "risk" in an internal statement.

Instability and growth obstacles for the S-Bahn traffic are the result.

S-Bahn accident near Schäftlarn: Not the first fatal accident on a single-track route in Bavaria

There are single-track lines everywhere in Bavaria - last but not least, the terrible accident in Bad Aibling in 2016 with twelve fatalities happened on a single-track line.

Railway experts also recall with horror a near-collision between two regional trains near Griesen (Garmisch-Partenkirchen district) in January 2020.

However, it is astonishing that a third of an already notoriously overloaded S-Bahn system has only been operated on a single track since the beginning of the S-Bahn era 50 years ago.

Petershausen-Röhrmoos, Weßling-Herrsching, Grafing-Ebersberg, Erding-Markt Schwaben - there are a number of S-Bahn sections with just one track.

A passenger died in an S-Bahn accident near Schäftlarn.

© Lennart Preiss/dpa

S-Bahn accident near Schäftlarn claims one fatality – S7 route is considered a “problem line”

The S-Bahn route with the largest single-track sections is precisely the S7 line on which the S-Bahn trains now collided.

Both 17 kilometers of the western branch between Höllriegelskreuth and Wolfratshausen and the 28 kilometers between Giesing and Kreuzstraße only have one track.

Local politicians have been complaining about this for years, for example at an S-Bahn summit in our newspaper in 2018. The then Mayor of Neubiberg, Günter Heyland, said that the S7 had “long since reached its capacity limit”.

The S7 is a "problem line".

Commuters know it: the S-Bahn keeps rushing through small stations because otherwise it cannot keep to the travel times and the oncoming train has to wait anyway.

Despite the known grievances, not much has happened.

Bavaria's Minister of Transport, Kerstin Schreyer, who lives on the route herself, gave little impetus.

Fatal crash on S7 route was only just avoided in 2021

Only in August last year did a serious incident occur on the S7 route: two S-Bahn trains converged on each other near Icking, but were able to stop 150 meters apart.

A train driver was suspended at the time, he is said to have misinterpreted a signal as a departure command.

This was an indication of a speed limit.

It is probably typical of the railways that half a year after this explosive incident, the report of the Federal Office for Railway Accident Investigation is still a long time coming - the authority is known for its notorious slowness.