German Trains Collide

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BBC

Saturday, 10 June, 2000, 12:48 GMT 13:48 UK

German trains collide

About 35 people are reported to have been injured, eight of them seriously, in a train crash in southern Germany.

Police say two mountain trains collided head-on in a tunnel between the Alpine towns of Garmisch and Greinau in the state of Bavaria.

No explanation for the crash, which happened just before 1100 local time (0900 GMT) has been given.

The trains were on a special track adapted for steep inclines, which connects the skiing areas of Garmisch-Partenkirchen with the Zugspitz, the highest point in the Bavarian Alps near to the Austrian border.

The German railway industry has been struggling to improve its safety image.

In an accident four months ago an express train jumped the tracks and ploughed into a house near Cologne, killing nine people and injuring 100.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 10, 2000

Answers

Nando Times

Dozens injured when train cars collide in Bavarian Alps

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (June 10, 2000 10:27 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - More than 40 people, mostly tourists, were injured when two train cars collided head-on Saturday on Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze in the Bavarian Alps.

Police and Red Cross emergency workers said about a dozen of the injured were seriously hurt. A train driver whose legs were crushed was flown by helicopter to a hospital, said Klemens Reindel of the Red Cross.

The Zugspitzbahn, an old-style rack-railway operated by a private firm, carries passengers from the resort towns of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to a station partway up the 9,718-foot peak, where they can transfer to a cable car to reach the summit.

The stretch where the collision took place has only a single track, and it was unclear why both trains were allowed on it at the same time, said Peter Hirt, an official with the train's operator. The traffic controller was suffering from shock and could not be immediately questioned, he added.

A single-car train left the Garmisch station about 10:20 a.m. with about 40 passengers on the single-track stretch. It collided with a nearly empty, two-car train traveling about 25 mph down the mountain at the entrance to the 100-yard Katzenstein tunnel.

Prosecutors confiscated the train data recorders and tapes of radio communication as part of their investigation.

All the injured were rescued from the wreck by midday; Red Cross crew leader Andreas Geuther said some passengers got out themselves and walked back down the slope.

Last August, 16 people were injured on the Zugspitzbahn when a train stopped because of a technical problem and the train following it braked too late and crashed into it. Damage then was estimated at $250,000.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 10, 2000.


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