After the fatal train accident at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Deutsche Bahn began preparatory work to rescue the locomotive and a last car from the crash site. Coming from the north, work can now be done on the tracks in coordination with the investigating authority, a railway spokesman said late on Thursday.
“In order for a crane on rails to be able to reach the car and locomotive to finally lift them, the section of track ahead of them is repaired first,” the spokesperson said. These measures alone before the rescue of the carriage and locomotive should take a few days. “The timing of the runway and rescue work also depends on future investigations.”
It is unclear when trains will be able to run the route again. There was speculation that this could drag on until or after the G7 summit in late June. However, the railway said: “The forecast for the resumption of train traffic is not yet possible.”
Nearly a week after the train crash left five dead, investigations and assessments are still ongoing at the crash site. Soko “Zug”‘s nearly 50 employees are working at full speed, said Upper Bavarian South police spokesman Stefan Sonntag.
The regional train from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Munich derailed on Friday afternoon. Four women and a 13-year-old teenager from the region died. Among the dead are two Ukrainian mothers who fled the war with their children. According to police, another woman was still in critical condition on Thursday. An ecumenical funeral service is planned for Saturday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The Public Ministry is investigating an initial suspicion of manslaughter against three railway employees. When looking for the cause, the focus is on a technical defect. Rails and chassis seem to be the focus of investigations. The chassis that had been transported from the crash site were protected.
Thomas Strang, a communication and navigation specialist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), warned to look for the cause first and then those responsible. It basically sees a system error. “In other countries, it is not so important who was to blame – but what happened and how can we systematically prevent the next time?” Strang told the German press agency.
“Of course, in the case of such accidents, someone usually contributes by leaving something out.” However, an individual’s mistake should not lead to an accident. A system of multiple security measures is required. “We need redundancies that prevent a mistake from leading to an accident.” Each bike or e-scooter has two independent braking systems.
Bild newspaper reported on Thursday, referring to the logbook of the accident route from Mittenwald via Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Munich, that the train was not traveling very fast at the crash site. Thus, he would have covered the 100 kilometers per hour allowed there.
The president of the Upper Bavarian South Police Headquarters, Manfred Hauser, had already said on Saturday at the scene of the accident that investigations had not shown that the train could be traveling at excessive speed.
Strang further said that there is a need for revamping DB Netz’s tracks, as shown by several slow routes. “The number of speed restrictions is a direct indicator of the condition of our network.” However, according to Strang’s assessment, there is a lack of qualified specialists who can design the corresponding work. Furthermore, the route network is so busy that all construction sites severely impede operations.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen was Germany’s fourth fatal train accident since 2016 – and all four occurred in Bavaria. However, at Bad Aibling 2016, at Aichach 2018 and at Schäftlarn in February 2022, two trains collided. No other trains were involved here.
Strang also expressed misunderstanding about the time until such accidents were resolved. After Bad Aibling, the final report was only available after two years, after Schäftlarn there was still no result even after four months.