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| Source: CNN |
On the 3rd of June an ICE train travelling at about 200km/h or 125mph crashed into a bridge near Eschede killing 102 people and injuring hundreds more on the main Hannover-Hamburg line. Since 1981 when Europe first started high speed rail with a Paris-Lyon 270km/h or 168mph the saftey record of high speed rail has been almost flawless with no deaths or serious injuries on high speed lines, only a few minor derailments (see: TGV Accidents). High speed rail has proved to be extremely safe. But now this major disaster in Germany might change those views.
It is worth remembering that the German train was only travelling at 125mph or 200km/h. Although this sounds, looks and feels fast it doesn't quite constitute as high speed, since hundreds of conventional trains all over Europe are capable of this. The ICE has a cruising speed of 280km/h or 174mph, which is only achievable when running on dedicated high speed track built recently. However this time it was travelling on old conventional track. Strictly therefore this is not a high speed crash and could have been with a conventional train.
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| Above: TGV derailment. Source: LCI |
This also might say something about the design of ICEs (German) compared to TGVs (French). This is because TGVs are continually connected in a semi-fixed long unit as the coaches share a bogie. This means in derailments TGVs do no jacknife like a normal train because the passenger cars remain fixed together.
What caused the accident is still under investigation, but it appears that a car may have fallen of the bridge derailing the train, causing it to hit the bridge and nock it down. A later version is that the train hit the bridge causing a car to fall off. Nevertheless it does appear to be a freak accident.
There has been speculation about metal fatigue causing a wheel to break, survivers reported rattling before the accident. A similar incident happened with a TGV when it derailed at 182mph (294km/h) because of an axle failure (worlds fastest derailment). However it only resulted in minor injuries, although many believe it could have been a major disaster.
German railways have been experiencing strong growth as much as 30% per annum and the ICE has become an increasingly important form of transport gaining market share from airline markets. The loss of popularity due to this accident may hinder this, which is possibly ironic seeing as if all the people who ever went on ICE since 1991 had gone by car, the resulting number of car accidents would have killed considerably more than 70.
From a technical point of view this should not slow down the pace of growth of high speed rail. High speed rail is accepted to be the safest form of transport and if this accident had happened to a normal train it could have been worse due to lower crash worthyness. Indeed high speed trains are safer than conventional trains since they use more modern equipment.
From a social point of view this might cause serious damage. In France the TGV uses its saftey as an advertising campaign, encouraging people "not to risk driving." The problem is that because high speed trains travel at speeds of 250-300km/h (156-186mph) the fear among people of something going wrong is greatly increased. Those in the rail industry will have to hope the public accepts high speed rail is safe despite this accident, the ICE can still have a fairly good saftey record with many billions of passenger kilometers behind it.
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