Train accident near Garmisch: Expert criticizes Deutsche Bahn in the strongest possible terms - "A scandal"

Created: 06/08/2022, 11:29 am

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

Numerous emergency and rescue workers are on duty after the serious train accident in Burgrain near Garmisch.

© Josef Hornsteiner/dpa

After the train accident in Burgrain, the authorities are investigating three railway employees.

An expert attributes the accident to defective rails – and takes the train to task.

Burgrain – Last Friday was a black day for Burgrain near Garmisch-Partenkirchen: a regional train derailed and three wagons fell over.

Five people died in the train accident and more than 40 were injured.

The Munich II public prosecutor is now investigating three railway employees on suspicion of negligent homicide, as a spokeswoman for the investigative authority confirmed.

The investigators initially did not provide any further information on the allegations and the basis of the suspicion.

A police spokesman said it was still too early for that given the current status of the investigation.

As the

newspaper reported, the three suspects are the person responsible for the route, the train driver and the dispatcher.

According to the report, the focus of the investigation is on the person responsible for the route.

Investigators confirmed to the AFP news agency the group of suspects named by the newspaper.

But it is still an initial suspicion.

Expert on the train accident near Garmisch: "Deutsche Bahn is too yesterday and too backward"

Markus Hecht, Professor of Railway Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, considers this approach to be wrong after the train accident.

In an interview with

, the expert takes the train and the authorities to court: “It is typical that in Germany people are immediately sought after who are supposed to be responsible for accidents.

You look for the person responsible at the lowest level.

This creates a culture of fear.” 

He demands in the magazine: "Authorities and Deutsche Bahn should concentrate on the processes that lead to errors, not on the people." It must now be a matter of questioning which processes can cause accidents.

"It is a scandal that three employees are now being targeted and are looking for someone who is personally responsible," says Hecht.

"Deutsche Bahn is too old-fashioned, too backward and not transparent."

Train accident near Garmisch: track distortion as the most likely cause

The expert considers defective rails to be the most likely cause of the train accident near Garmisch-Partenkirchen - namely a so-called track distortion: "It does not occur on the leading vehicle and only this is able to accelerate people so that they are thrown through the window". , so Hecht to

.

The cause of a fault is, for example, a maintenance error on the track.

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According to Hecht, a major problem for safety in train traffic is that Germany has “completely outdated and inconsistent signaling technology”: “If it fails, the train driver or a person in the control center has to manually override it.

The probability of accidents then increases sharply.” In the interview with the magazine, the expert demands: “Germany needs modern train protection technology.

In principle, the whole of Europe has agreed on this.” The European Train Control System, ETCS for short, would reduce human error.

But the introduction of ETCS in Germany is making little progress.