The Cost of Comfort: The Eschede Train Disaster 1998 | Plainly Difficult Documentary

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On 3 June 1998, an Deutsche Bahn ICE 1 train derailed and crashed into the pillars of a road bridge, which then collapsed onto the train outside of Eschede Germany......
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:56 Background
02:57 ICE 1
05:06 Wheels Wheels Wheels
08:48 Disaster
13:13 Investigation
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#disaster #Documentary​​​​ #History​​​​​​​​​ #TrueStories​

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Any other railway suggestions let me know!! This weeks outro video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWmqfp9slrZ2Y8k

[@thomascook578]

What about Potters Bar and the then failings of Railtrack. Bellgrove and Newton crashes in Glasgow both caused by the same failings, turning dual tracks into single tracks, both were classed as SPADs

[@N00N01]

What about the grayrigg disaster??

[@StevenHodder]

The JR West derailment at Amagasaki, Osaka Japan. An excellent study in both technical and human factors in transport disasters.

[@willsen8908]

How about the polmont train disaster in Scotland where a push pull express train slammed into a cow (yes a cow) and deraild because of the light weight cab car killing 13, or if you would like a train accident from a different country, you could talk about the 1919 Vigerslev train disaster which is the worst in danish history killing 40

[@thebarkingmouse]

"One of the most safest"... instant ear cancer

[@hartmutholzgraefe]

I was on another ICE the very same day, cellphones were not really a thing back then, neither was WLAN, so only when I returned home the next day I learned about the accident, and was greeted by an answering machine that had reached its call limit as everyone wanted to know whether I was fine ...

[@avgeek_a321]

So was my mother, she just öearned later what happened

[@jackforshaw4439]

My gosh imagine a world before you could mark yourself safe on Facebook :o

[@MrJest2]

BTDT, after a fashion. The number of calls on my answering machine after the '89 Loma Prieta quake sort of astonished me (took me over 4 hours to get home that day; the "normal" commute time was less than an hour)... and made me feel somewhat better about my existence on this Earth, I suppose, in that there were that many people who were worried about my safety. But there is a subtle difference between a "natural disaster" and a "man made" one, I think. Not much one can do about an earthquake, but when a plane crashes, or a train derails at such high speeds, it seems a bit more... immediate. And questions are asked...

[@Gamersunite2506]

@@jackforshaw4439 wut?

[@SouffleGirl2]

WLAN = WiFi 😉

[@peischtipeir]

14:32 you mentioned a core aspect of neglegance briefly, I feel like this should be stressed more: after the trams were discovered to have unexpectedly high wear, the ICE wheels were inspected by ultrasonic devices. They detected microscopic cracks (caused by fatigue) left right and center, after which management decided the method was unreliable and went back to visual inspections (which obviously didn't spot the microscopic cracks). There were no false positivs!

[@heavyweight6440]

This

[@heavyweight6440]

@@joergsonnenberger6836 If cracks are a sign of wear, the wheel should instantly be replaced. It is called Safe-Life. You change a part BEFORE it even gets close to failure. This is done in the aviation industry alot! In my opinion you do not have to be a PhD of Engineering to realize, that cracks in a metal wheel, that bears multiple tens of tonns of weight and turns at rotationspeeds up to 250km/h, are a very clear indicator of excessive wear, even better: damage! Cutting costs and downplaying the importance of such things probably was more important than actually fixing the problem.

[@joergsonnenberger6836]

​@@heavyweight6440 Your very first word is exactly the crucial point. The whole point of engineering as a discipline is balancing cost, safety and functionality. If you look at a regular rubber tire, small cracks are completely normal wear. If they are deeper, they can be an indicator of pending doom. Do you replace the tires of your car when the first crack appears? Of course not. The decision is made based on experience, fault analysis and modelling of the behavior of the material. The same applies to metal wheels, too. What happened here is a combination of multiple factors. Insufficient testing of the new design, lack of experience from comparable deployments in the rest of the world, insufficient computer models, financial and political pressure, just to name a few. Even with hindsight, it is not clear that more testing under lab conditions would have found this problem. As I mentioned, the operation conditions of the Shinkansen and the TGV are noticeable different, but it wasn't understood at the time how this impacted the wear and fatigue. After the Enschede incident, the service intervals were cut down dramatically, but they had a major problem: what are they supposed to look for? They had thousands of wheels that had various levels of microscopic cracks, but didn't break. Let's say they replace the wheels after 5000 km, when the first cracks appear (number made up). Before Enschede, they had thousands of wheels going for 50000 km just fine. So the balance clearly doesn't work, and the cracks alone are not a good indicator of pending failure. There are a number of other technical design choices in the over all railway system that made the situation far worse. The presence of the railway switch directly in front of the bridge was one of those contributing factors. The sealed car design created a major point of contentions during the rescue work. Many firefighters and THW members had no idea how to enter the cars. There were a number of lessons learned from this accident, and that's something should be mentioned, too. Just like after aviation accidents, a postmortem happened. The train cars were reworked to have more emergency entry points, e.g. windows with predetermined breaking points. The THW got a ICE car for research and training to create rescue manuals for future situations, to be shared with other rescue agencies. The maintenance system was changed from fixed time windows to a model based on the mileage of the cars. Many of the rescue workers had forms of PTSD and as a result of this accident the crashed rescue helicopter in Hamburg a few years later, teams for psychological first-aid for rescue workers are now widely available and the preparation is an important base in the training. Material science has a new understanding of the interaction of local short-term phenomenons (vibrations from a strike to the wheel as part of track wear) with long term processes like the wear on the wheel. So the short version is: this accident has a number of factors that contributed, please don't simplify it to cost-cutting.

[@invalid8774]

@@heavyweight6440 ofc youre completely right but I want to give some context about the deutsche Bahn and explain why this obvious route was not chosen. You might have noticed that in the video the german railway company had two names: first it was the deutsche Bundesbahn (german national railway) and later it was just deutsche Bahn (german railway). Germany was reunited in 1990 and that triggered a wave of sellouts. In East Germany or the German Democratic Republic (DDR) they had a state managed economy. All major companies were controlled by the government. When the government collapsed there was noone in ownership. In the reintegration process some of these companies were integrated into bigger west german companies like the German Reichsbahn, the railway company of the DDR, was integrated into the german bundesbahn, the railway company of west germany. A lot of other companies got sold cheap under the table. E.g. a friend of helmut kohl, the west german chancelor from that time, got all major newspaper offices of the DDR, it was a very corrupt time. Also the german people are a proud bunch. But after loosing two wars, committing some of the worst crimes against humanity known to man, nearly getting anihilated and then getting ripped apart and forced against their brothers and sisters. The german people had survived quite a rough few decades and those had left marks. After reunion germany wanted to be seen as strong but also as trustworthy and as the pioneers and great engineers that we have always been. And with the triumph of capitalism over communism there was a new spark to erradicate all state controlled structure and give everything to the free market as it has solved the biggest challenge of them all, defeat communism. And so the just reunited deutsche Bundesbahn was privatized into a private company called the deutsche Bahn. The major shareholder was and still is the german state but the company is privatized. The process began in 94 and took a while to complete. So for a lot of reasons the deutsche Bahn wanted to look impressive. And the ICE was just that. It was groundbraking, faster than the bullet train or the TGV with higher top speed and higher operating speed than either competitor. Now going back to the full cast wheels would have reduced ride quality and that would have made the ICE vulnerable to other high speed rail projects, it might have lost its prestige position. Same goes for the price. If they had maintained the wheels as often as it would have been needed to ensure safe operation, it would have been way to expensive. Not only would the wheels cost way too much, you would have needed a lot more trains to keep the system going while so many wagons are in maintenance. So you have a high will to risk an incident before changing something paired with a disastrous cost saving measure, a combo very common for disasters. Keep in mind these are the stories where it backfired horribly, we dont know how often it has worked out fine. But nonetheless add to that a complex hierarchy and chinese whispers and there isnt really noone that has all information and the ability to stop this doomed approach. Without realising it the chiefs have created a company culture where safety is disregarded over the demonstration of power and strength and so people make the wrong decision to not report something to their superior or to disqualify a test method because it would stop the entire fleet within a week. Dont get fooled by the idea that there was a chairman that had all the info and decided that hundrets of lives were a risk worth taking for international glory. That chairman would have been seen as a madman and a lot of people would have stopped him. But this is not how this works. And so 101 people lost their lives, a bridge collapsed, a route was blocked for weeks and hundrets of people struggle with the memories to this day. Ive worked with some of them in civil protection in Hannover. And the ICE has lost all its glory.

[@OffGridInvestor]

Should've have cut into them and separated the rubber off to twist it and see if it was cracks. Imagine getting a known method, NOT LIKING THE RESULTS and then claiming the known method to be crap ONLY BECAUSE you didn't want bad news.

[@AldanFerrox]

I actually was inside of the salvaged cars from the crash. They were stored at a military base near my hometown (which is about 40km from Eschede), and when I was in the military, I got the chance to look inside of them (that was in 2005). They were still in the same condition as they were when they had been placed there for safe keeping, and it was very a eerie sight. Dust and splintered glass and ceramic everywhere, old bleached out magazines and other things made from paper, but also dried out blood and other liquids that I couldn't identify (I wore PPE, though). And even some luggage was still lying around. It was pretty scary to see all this in front of me, despite knowing I wasn't in any kind of danger at this moment. Some time later, after the base had been closed, the cars were send to the scrapyard, although one of them is still conserved at a German university as a object for research.

[@LetsKon]

Not quite right. One of the power units still is in service. It was quite shocking to me when I noticed that fact while I was starting up the train on one of my recent shifts. That was a bit creepy as it already was dark outside and there was just one collegue with me on this very special train.

[@LetsKon]

@@myusernameisthisduh What do you want now? I wanted to comment on Aldans Post as the last sentence isn't completely right and that I understand the feelings he had inside the destroyed train cars. But I get it, thinking is too complex for some folks...

[@poultrypants]

@@LetsKon I think they might be a bot.

[@LetsKon]

@Poultry Pants If you would see some folks I have to deal with on a daily basis, you would also think that the stupidest bot might be human. It's ridiculous how uneducated this species can be if they really try to.

[@Tryinglittleleg]

@@LetsKon Do you drive them?

[@1990Judson]

An incredible sad day that could have been much worse. According to the time tables at that point that ICE and the ICE in the other direction were supposed to pass each other. The other ICE ran a minute early and this one a minute late so they passed each other a few kilometers up the line. With a litte difference in the timing we could have had another train barreling into the crash site with 200+ km/h.

[@Ul.B]

The ICE 787 “Karl Adam” drove through Eschede one minute ahead of schedule on June 3rd and had already passed the scene of the accident almost two minutes earlier; the ICE “Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen”, on the other hand, was one minute late - actually, the trains should have met here at the minute of symmetry at 10:57.

[@SupersuMC]

Thank God that didn't happen. Literally. O_O

[@jordanrodrigues1279]

Signaling systems are designed to prevent that kind of thing. I don't know if they had positive train control then, but that's the current state of art for passenger and especially high speed rail: if a train is late to leave a block then any conflicting train is automatically stopped.

[@Ul.B]

@@jordanrodrigues1279 Let me explain it. The ICE "Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen" was travelling north to Hamburg. The ICE "Karl Adam" was travelling south. Normally these trains met in Eschede, but since the train travelling south was ahead of time, they met between Eschede and Garßen.

[@Lovesausage269]

I left work late last night and drove by a almost 2 mile crash scene in my exit lane from the bridge, being late is awesome.

[@euleausberlin]

One thing to note: The train yards were significantly understaffed, resulting in non-essential repairs not being executed. Thus, there was a lot of pressure to report damage to the wheels as "not-so-bad". Greed for higher profit margins in the newly-privatized Deutsche Bahn resulted in the death of 101 people and not a single person responsible for this was punished. Huge black pill for many Germans.

[@IANinALTONA]

That's not quite true. DB was NEVER privatized, it was just transformed into an AG, but the Government continued to hold (and still does 25 years later) a 100% Stake. Also, on the whole, DB was NEVER profitable, so it's wrong to claim that the intent was to 'maximize profits'.

[@Zoddom]

@@IANinALTONA its practically a form of a private company tho. Especially because its so unprofitable, they have to increase profit margins to optimize efficiency. Thats the sad truth of capitalism, money is always #1 priority, everything else is second.

[@hartmutholzgraefe]

As far as I remember the repair had already been scheduled, but had been deemed of lesser importance so it would have been done together with a regular larger inspection the following week.

[@hartmutholzgraefe]

@@IANinALTONA but it was the time where preparing it for an IPO was still on the agenda ...

[@nthgth]

Ohh cApItAlIsM bAd, here we go

[@lillywho]

9:40 One Important and tragic detail that I remember from a book I once read is, passengers had actually alerted the train personnel to the car being rather unsteady while cruising, several times, and everyone had been told not to worry. So it had been noticed that something was wrong even before the tyre penetrated the passenger compartment.

[@wilsjane]

The guard was totally wrong to ignore comments that obviously indicated a mechanical failure. While I can understand him being expected to check before stopping the train. Failure to stop the train when he had been clearly told that a mechanical part had broken through the floor of one of the carriages was ridiculous. He should have faced charges of criminal negligence, at least. In 55 years of working in an engineering environment, I have never seen a job description that requires a person to switch their common sense off when they arrive at work.

[@HenryLoenwind]

@@wilsjane Obviously, it couldn't have been that bad if the passenger reporting the problem didn't go for an emergency brake but took the time to find a conductor.

[@Peter-jl4ki]

@@HenryLoenwind There's a fine for pulling the emergency brake if some paper pushers decide it was unwarranted, and if you do pull it you are guaranteed to injure some people on a full train. Simply stopping the train at reasonable breaking speed would have been better, which would be a good explanation for why the passenger looked for someone who had the ability to do so.

[@nkt1]

@@Peter-jl4ki I don't know about the ICE, but the UK's HST takes a full mile to stop from 125mph; presumably the ICE takes at least this distance. So, I'm guessing that around a minute or more elapses between the brakes being applied and the train coming to a halt. I doubt such relatively slow deceleration would cause many injuries.

[@Peter-jl4ki]

@@nkt1 I and many others have been told injuries happen due to the unexpectedness of the sudden deceleration, more than the force itself. If that's inaccurate that's good to know, but the expectation that pulling the emergency brake can hurt people is still there and can lead people to not pull it if they aren't 100% sure it needs to be.

[@Ass_of_Amalek]

pro tip: when you're a passenger on a train, and you see an object punch up through the floor of the carriage while the carriage starts to shake violently, you should pull an emergency brake yourself instead of looking for a railway employee.

[@DFDelta]

I was twelve when this happened. My homeroom teacher was supposed to be on that train, had a seat reservation and everything. She was spending a week with some friends from her university days. According to her they partied late into the night, and she overslept hard, waking up at 1 pm. She heard about the train from the hotel worker when she made a self-deprecating joke about being stupid and missing her 10am train while she was checking out.

[@sncgaming9831]

She dint dodge a bullet she dodged a nuke

[@Happymali10]

There's a great documentary by German tv-station NDR called "Die Narbe: Eschede" ("The scar: Eschede") where they visited the site and survivors over 20 years onwards and it shows how deeply affected both responders, witnesses and survivors still are. Like one firefighter who still has the dirty, bloodied jacket in his shed. He says he can't have it in his home, can't wear it, but he also can't get himself to throw it out or wash it. I watched it when writing an article on the accident, and it's really interesting showing a side of such tragedies that's often forgotten. I visited the memorial this year, and to say it's an eerie atmosphere is a WILD understatement.

[@LasseGreiner]

Not making this about myself (I hope), I remember to this day where I was learning that it happend. I guess a lot of fellow humans feel the same. Also, many of the survivors had life changing injuries, which is a fate on its own.

[@mariekatherine5238]

I can relate to the man with the jacket. I have a dirty pair of shoes vacuum sealed and in a box in my attic. I was wearing them on 9-11 when fleeing the area. I managed to take refuge in a deli, but not before running through the dust and debris from the first tower. My other clothes I threw out when I couldn’t get the smell out of them. But the shoes I attribute to my escape, so I’ve kept them. Lots of people were wearing unsuitable footwear for running and ended up kicking them off and running barefoot or in socks or hose, which certainly slowed them down.

[@KelseyLovato]

Need to look for the documentary. Thanks for the suggestion

[@L3vinesNL]

@@LasseGreiner it is normal to have those kind of memories. I have a bunch of those around some accidents that happend in the Netherlands. One of wich is about an disaster in Enschede(NL).

[@vahvahdisco]

I tried to watch that on here but the auto subtitles in English were atrocious and didn’t make sense ! Also they were not on the screen long enough to read properly ! So I gave up with it !

[@adamstormont2953]

This disaster received a lot of coverage in Australia because it shares similarities with our worst rail disaster. On 18 January 1977, an interurban train comprising an electric locomotive and 8 steel-framed, wooden-bodied passenger carriages travelling at 80km/h derailed at Granville in Sydney’s western suburbs. The train demolished a stanchion supporting the overhead wires which tore open the first passenger carriage. It also demolished the piers of the adjacent road bridge, which subsequently collapsed on the third and fourth passenger carriages. 84 people were killed and more than 200 people were injured. The primary cause was poor track maintenance due to years of underfunding.

[@nkt1]

Granville was exacerbated by the fact that the road bridge was found to be too low during construction, so they just poured on more concrete to bring it up to the required level.

[@peterjongsma5297]

I'm Australian. I'd forgotten how high the death toll was. 84 people! Dreadful.

[@shannonpincombe8485]

Geez..underfunding of rail in Australia...? Our governments, of any side of the aisle, are pathetic when it comes to rail projects as they've always preferred road infrastructure...And then they let the automotive manufacturing sector die an awful death....If they'd planned to move to an updated rail network in the 1980s, as many civil emgineers and planners suggested, lots of people would've had jobs to go to once the car industry collapsed. Designers, steel workers, fitters, turners and engineers especially. Lack of vision. The Australian way!!! Granville was a horrible accident which should never have happened yet the lessons haven't been learned.

[@peterjongsma5297]

@@shannonpincombe8485 Couldn't agree more. Sydney used to have Trams from Bondi to The City. Australia couldn't even agree on the same rail gauge between Victoria and NSW. To keep The Peace they Artificially built Canberra somewhere in The Geographic Middle. Still, I'd rather live in Sydney than Melbourne.

[@RickyPro888]

@@peterjongsma5297at least it seems Melbourne’s rail network has picked up steam in recent years to one day make up for the mismanagement. Hopefully Sydney’s plans all come to fruition

[@DeputatKaktus]

A friend of mine was one of the first responders on site. Once he shared some of the experiences he had during those days. I genuinely do not want to share those here because it is beyond harrowing. I well up just thinking about it. He and a bunch of other people have had extensive therapy after that. Not everyone of them is around today because they could not take it anymore. According to him, there are two polar opposites of people when it comes to coping afterwards. The one type has seen their fair share of bad stuff and they have also seen how quickly things can be over. They are better at rationalizing things. On the other side of the spectrum you have often younger, less experienced people who - in grossly oversimplified terms - think they are invulnerable "save the day" superheroes. The latter type is the one who tends to fall into a deep hole afterwards. They suddenly have their whole world view upended and called into question, faced with the stark realization that they are neither invulnerable nor superheroes. The often cannot cope with the fact that sometimes, through no fault of their own, they just cannot save the day. And this often leads those characters into very, very dark places from which some never return.

[@mfreed40k]

I put in 19 years as a paramedic and you are correct. That first big one can be make or break. All the others after just add to the trauma you tell yourself didn't bother you.

[@lairdcummings9092]

I used to drive the rescue truck for a volunteer fire company, new guy. Then we had a bad night where we responded to a single vehicle incident. Both front occupants were obviously deceased on our arrival. A young girl was in the back seat, responsive and somewhat alert. She passed while the crew were extracting her. I'm not the only one who resigned. Let someone who can cope with those events do the job.

[@DaveSCameron]

I hear you loud and sound and you make some excellent points however please try and remember that we are a race of very different people and someone will think offering a cuppa is the answer because they're not trained. Best wishes. 👍

[@HankScorpio64]

I have a Deputy Sheriff as a friend. It really takes someone with an iron nerve to be a Firefighter, Paramedic, Police/Sheriff. One the worse incidents he ever responded too was a meth lab in a hotel room that well suffice to say didn't go too well and killed 2 of the 4 people in the room. Tbey had to call in hazmat cleanup and evacuate the whole hotel and find places to stay for 40 people. We don't really talk much about his job unless he wants too. We just hang out and play games or just chill out at my place and watch movies.

[@nthgth]

I'm completely in awe of the people who can take this kind of stuff and still do their jobs. To be able to steel yourself like that.. that's heroic.

[@monsterfurby]

Fun fact: Deutsche Bahn recently introduced a "points of interest" feature in their onboard Wi-Fi intranet. That feature shows interesting spots next to the route and gives a short description and background. While there are many historical churches and chapels along the way from Hannover to Hamburg, Eschede's small historical chapel is noted explicitly, unlike most of the others. My theory is that this is Deutsche Bahn trying to acknowledge the disaster in a respectful way without directly naming it (it isn't mentioned in any way, not even the very clearly visible memorial is acknowledged) similar to how airlines tend to cut scenes showing plane accidents out of onboard movies. Just something I found kind of interesting as someone takes the ICE between those two cities regularly.

[@simonm1447]

Don't they have "aircrash investigation" in their on board entertainment system ;-)?

[@yarpen26]

@@simonm1447 Never watch this show ahead of any flight. Hell, better start watching it only after you know for a fact you won't have to board a plane ever again in your life. _Especially_ steer clear of the TWA 800 episode. Seriously. For your sake.

[@DistractedGlobeGuy]

Or maybe hoping that *that's* the association people will form when they hear the words "DeutscheBahn" and "Eschede" instead of something else. _Gotta keep that all-important positive brand identity!_

[@CompleteRobot]

I'm studying safety engineering in Germany, and this incident is one of the main case examples for civil protection classes; as tragic as it is with the ~100 deaths it was still insightful into what structures worked and what needs to be improbed. One other thing worth pointing out is that the conductor did not realise he lost the train cars until the switchstation in Eschede informed him about the missing train carts.

[@holeshothunter5544]

I remember reading about this - in French - while riding the TGV Paris-Bordeaux in '99. As we hit 300, An Interesting Feeling ran up and down my spine. They don't crash often, but when they do...

[@SteamCheese1]

Thank you John for covering this disaster! I'm a German Railroader, a railcar safety engineer to be precise and this accident and a few others changed our process and protocols at the DB AG so fundamental and broadly that our maintenance handbooks are triple the thickness nowadays compared to 1998. Reading the old manuals always astonish me, thanks to hindsight it looks vastly inadequate. But I always have to keep in mind that almost every law is written with blood, we simply didn't knew better very often.

[@wilsjane]

I totally blame the guard. If someone had told you that a mechanical part had broken through the floor of one of the carriages, would you have gone to look for yourself before stopping the train. ? Even if the object had not been part of the train, after such an incident their was still a considerable risk of derailment.

[@sleepysxb7710]

@@wilsjane you can't blame the guard for following the company policy and training. they were trained to trust the practices in place. while yes it's common sense, imagine being responsible for stopping a high value revenue stream just on the word of someone you don't know. it's unfortunate and tragic but he was doing what he thought was right in accordance to his job training. it's not his fault the engineers failed to understand the risk of running those tires. most likely he passed, if not suffering massive injuries. you can't place the blame on him as he was just another cog in the machine. he was more likely trained to stop an aggressive passenger or some kind of bomb threat or attack than question the safety of the train itself.

[@SteamCheese1]

@@wilsjane I have no idea how I would have reacted. I would have fallen back on my training. So if I was a train manager back then, I might have done the same fatal mistake. Nowadays I would react differently. Pull the Emergency brakes right away. But back then... no Idea. It's the same thing with soldiers, EMTs, Police and Firemen. If everything fails or a till then unknown situation arises, you always fall back on training and policies. I would argue that the training and company policies was at fault. You have those situations quite often in history. Like the French army at the beginning of WW1 or the German Army in Russia in WW2. Faulty training, outdated Doctrine.

[@wilsjane]

@@SteamCheese1 In Japan, the culture is to go exactly by the book and never question the boss. When during a fire situation, the manager (over the radio) told a driver to lock his train and evacuate, the driver did just that. His boss did not instruct him to get the passengers off the train first. The fire spread to the platform and around 200 people died. Who was to blame.? The manager did not know that passengers had already boarded the train.

[@tami6867]

@@wilsjane well, have to say this "culture" of never questioning the boss or the elderly in japan, korea and sure some other countries around is just crap. Its a driver of incompetence, huge amounts of money lost, and as you see sometimes even lost life. The collapsed shopping mal in seoul was also such a case.

[@henrikliberg8360]

I've got a suggestion for you, The Almö Bridge disaster and also known as the Tjörn bridge disaster. A ship called the MS Star Clipper collided with an arch bridge sending the entire bridge into the ocean, thick fog and the fact that the bridge crushed the ship's bridge led to eight people losing their life. It happened in the middle of the night 18th January 1980 and whilst a lorry driver was able to stop the traffic on one side, it took 40 minutes until someone realized what had happened on the other. Would be interesting to see your take on the disaster as I occasionally drive over the replacement bridge. If not keep up the good work, it's incredibly interesting to see these videos as a soon to be construction engineer, maybe I wont make the same mistakes lol

[@DaveSCameron]

Sheiss!! 😦

[@henrikliberg8360]

@@DaveSCameron Indeed... can't even imagine being on the side that was closed first, then watching for ages until the other side got closed.

[@filipinordabest]

Just imagine driving, seeing a pair of red lights in front of you, ... suddenly disappearing, then three seconds later realising why.

[@housemana]

henrik what do u think this is, open mic suggestion share night lmao

[@MrJuanDover]

Sounds interesting. Also, terrifying.

[@renegade2110]

Started into this channel on the radioactive disasters but as a train nerd myself I love your recaps on these events, I enjoy the context we get all the way down to the nuances of signaling lol.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you! I do love me some signalling!

[@MrJuanDover]

@@PlainlyDifficult Not sure if you've heard of the 1979 Mississauga (adjacent to Toronto, Canada) train derailment, but that could be right up your alley John. Big derailment which resulted in a massive fireball on a dangerous goods train leading to the evacuation of more than 200,000 in the surrounding area due to fears of chlorine gas spreading throughout the area.

[@neuralmute]

@@MrJuanDover Oooh, good one! I've been asking for the Lac-Megantic explosion forever, but the Mississauga crash would make for an excellent video as well.

[@MrSalsa2006]

@@MrJuanDover Ooo, yes, great idea, that's my hometown!

[@dessmith7658]

You should read 'Red for Danger' by LTC Rolt

[@Lars1690]

On a side note, this also led to the development of tools for the firebrigade for such disasters. As you said, they couldn't open the train cars with what they had at the time. Now they have special cutting equipment for trains for firefighters near train tracks. And 'Rauchen Verboten' means 'no smoking'. Don't know what that was supposed to mean at that point in the video😄

[@markh.6687]

That "Rauchen Verboten" was just thrown in because it was in German. Alles klar, Herr Kommissar? (Falco's "Der Kommissar".)

[@hamsterama]

I'd be more concerned about the atrocious pronunciation of the word Eschede. Unlike English, German words are pronounced like they're spelled, and it's not difficult to use the internet to find out how to read German.

[@markh.6687]

@@hamsterama And the award for taking things much too seriously goes to....for running off the rails during a railway crash video while worrying about how an English speaker who doesn't speak German says a few German words.

[@chad_bro_chill]

@@hamsterama Oh, if you only knew how bad your English was. Why ARE almost all other languages so pedantic about their precious little language being mispronounced by non-speakers? It's so...silly, to put it as nicely as possible.

[@hamsterama]

@@chad_bro_chill Um, dude, I'm American. I never wrote that I am German. Not sure why you came to that conclusion. Believe it or not, some Americans learn to speak other language. I did a study abroad year in Germany during my junior year of high school, that's how I learned German. Not sure why you are questioning my English writing skills, either. I'm an accountant, and I have to regularly write reports as part of my job.

[@drstihl2007]

I still remember my mother hearing it in the radio and getting into the car in obvious distress to go there to donate blood. They specifically asked in the radio for blood donations, that was a first. Also in Hannover there was another interesting accident in 1969. A worker spotted sparks coming from the wheel of a passing freight train and reported it. The train was stopped in the station Hannover-Linden, they expected a break being locked. When they saw the cart it was already burning a little so the fire brigade was called, the fire was not big yet so the workers went to remove the others carts so the fire can't spread later on. Then they saw the sheet of what the cart had stored.......mother! fucking! 175mm! tank! grenades! 12 people died in the explosion, my father told me that he heard the explosion loud and clearly around 7km away.

[@philrabe910]

My German brother in law said this accident was also helped by the fact that culturally, the man who first observed the danger felt he was not competent enough to pull the alarm himself without the proper permissions from a relevant authority figure. It would be classed as a Crew Resource Management accident if he were the copilot and failed to speak up in an air crash.

[@notmenotme614]

It’s scary to think that a microscopic crack that nobody notices can cause such a fatal sequence of events. Fatigue cracks are also a problem in the aviation industry. It makes you wonder how many microscopic fatigue cracks are out there in all forms of transport and safety critical equipment?

[@kommandantgalileo]

I did a entire project on this a few years ago, this is what introduced me to disaster investigations, thanks for covering this.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!

[@kommandantgalileo]

@@PlainlyDifficult no, thank you.

[@Spacek531]

My favorite fact about dual block wheels is that they were made for a period in the 1800s and early 1900s with laminated paper as the damping medium.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

I never knew that! That's crazy!

[@user-ck7jv1hn8k]

Incredibly autistic

[@Fusilier7]

This reminds me of the Gare de Lyon rail accident which occurred on 27 June 1988, where it was more than just an engineering disaster, it was also caused by bad company policy. Ironically, those policies were intended to prevent major accidents, yet contributed to causing the runaway commuter train, to collide with the stopped train at the station.

[@DistractedGlobeGuy]

Corporate policies are _never_ there to prevent accidents-they're there to prevent _loss of revenue. That's_ why events like Eschede are such a common occurrence in industries that aren't competently overseen by somebody who isn't beholden to the fucking stockbrokers.

[@stefstef2418]

Moral of the story. If a piece of metals go thru the floor in your train, dont go looking for someone and pull the emergency break

[@fuffoon]

I was on the slopes of Breckenridge when the Challenger exploded. I was working in a model airplane shop when Columbia disintegrated. I was walking my dog when this ICE derailed. Certain events form strong memories.

[@MTTT1234]

I wonder what must have gone through somebody's mind when he decided for that different wheel design. 'Let's take a wheel designed for a tram and drive it 25 times faster than it was tested for, what could go wrong?'

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Because in the UK several members of the Class 86 locomotives were in service with SAB resilient wheels at speeds of upto 100mph (160km/h). I've looked every where and not found any evidence of an accident being caused by these wheels on these locomotives. So, this meant that the Germans had a source of evidence for the reliability of these wheels.

[@namewarvergeben]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 a few locomotives (8 wheels each?) going 100mph don't seem like a great sample size for something that's put on entire trains (over a hundred trains, ~100 wheels each) that will go much faster. It only took one of those wheels to cause this accident, and with this many wheels as potential failure points the total probability of a failure was much higher. The only way this could have gone better is if the failure had been in one of the rear cars, and that would still have been tragic. Easy to say in hindsight of course. I wasn't there. I just don't think it's a good justification

[@Ul.B]

The normal wheels led to a strong droning noise in the trains, and objects in the trains wobbled. So the decision was made to use other wheels to increase comfort.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@namewarvergeben it's better than trams, if British trams are anything to go by, that go no faster than about half this speed. Whilst the 19 members of the Class 86/3 isn't a large sample, it is large enough for this purpose. As for the probability of failure, if the failure if a tyre has a probability of 1 in 10,000 then it doesn't matter if it's the first or last tyre that fails the probability remains the same as each tyre is independent if all other tyres.

[@namewarvergeben]

​@@neiloflongbeck5705 Better than trams, but not good enough. The radial forces on the wheels are much higher at higher speeds. And the speed also correlates to more rotations (i.e. duty cycles) at higher frequency. All of these factors contribute to material fatigue. The 86/3 is significantly more benign to its wheels, at least judging by the numbers. As for the location of the failure along the train: Yes, that was pretty much equally likely anywhere along the train. I meant to point out that it was "bad luck" that this design flaw killed as many people as it did by failing near the front. But it would still have killed a lot of people if it had happened in the rear.

[@oganvildevil]

can we talk about just how great this genre of disembodied semi expert accents has been?? thanks for another great one plainly

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you, my body went the shops for cigarettes but never came back 😔

[@markh.6687]

Jawhol, Mein Herr! Rauchen Verboten, Fo' shizzle!

[@oganvildevil]

@@PlainlyDifficult weird origin story for an accent but I'm here for it

[@ElliLavender]

You might have already heard of it but a few days ago a huge aquarium, the Aquadom in Berlin, bersted seemingly out of nowhere and got completely destroyed. When the cause gets properly investigated, I'd love to see a video from you on the whole thing, as I think you're very good at explaining! :)

[@anselmareich3549]

I live in Berlin and remember that. It was fucking wild and I feel bad for the poor fishes that died.

[@faenethlorhalien]

I remember this being on the news even in Spain back in the day. Read "Eschede" and immediately something went in my head that said "oh, that can't be good". Weird how some names become associated with sad events even though it's probably the only time that place name will be heard of outside the general area where it is.

[@hailstevemcqueen]

Weird how that works. Then, on top, 2 years later there was that fireworks factory explosion in Enschede (in the Netherlands) that left two dozen people dead, I remember back then it felt like fate has a cruel sense of humor.

[@darkadmiral106]

​@@hailstevemcqueen It does.

[@reginal.898]

It's true. I'm from Hamburg, and I hadn't even heard about Eschede before the crash. After that, everyone knew the name.

[@IrishEddie317]

" Pretty much, if you were past this point, wouldn't have been a good day." You are a master of understatement.

[@xzytqweo3538]

Thank you, John, for another informative and devastating video which you do so well. I can't even imagine how the passengers felt sitting there one minute and then the next being flung all over the car as the train derailed and become air borne. The sounds of the crunching metal, screams from passengers, and then the sudden stop. Dead silence for what seemed like an eternity. As those still alive gathered their senses and tried to get up to either get out (if they could) or help others. And the general public or workers who were near by to first hear the crash or see it happen....only in nightmares can we imagine this...but it was for real for them. I feel for those who survived and the ones assisting with the rescue. Bless everyone of them.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you for your comment!

[@romanglinnik8073]

As part of a disaster mitigation exercise, I managed to crawl through a tipped over ICE wagon. It was an interesting experience and certainly gave me a glimpse at what it must have felt like being there, on that one particular day in Eschede. The amount of people who perished is absolutely devastating.

[@ninchiru9225]

My parents were totally panicked when they heard about the crash, because my brother's class was traveling through Eschede in a train that day, as they returned from a school trip. It was a relief to them when they heard it was an ICE, since my brother was traveling in a regular IC and therefore arrived home safe and sound.

[@brendan5825]

I'd love to see a video on the Jahn Foundry explosion in Springfield, Massachusetts, 1998. My father was one of the first firefighters on scene.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you for the suggestion

[@themallard1515]

Man I'll say... This channel just keeps on getting better and better. Excellent research and explanation of each and every account, making you feel like your really at the disaster as it unfolds. One of the finest channels on youtube.

[@wladi92]

I expected, as usual, very much and very good stuff from your videos. But my hometown to be mentioned(Göttingen) took me suddenly and unexpectedly by surprise. Edit: I spoke today with a friend, who was a volunteer fireman back at the time. As soon as I mentioned the event, he instantly blocked it off, saying he was there and it was very ugly. Hearing this from a man who has been in Kosovo in the time of the war must mean something...

[@Turtlefire1]

I have heard, and even watched documentaries on the disaster before, but didn't quite realize or remember which line it happened on. Due to a recent move, I actually ride that exact train line semi-regularly, and realizing that it is the same one, seeing those trains I trust so much in such a mangled shape and being reminded of that tragedy... very eyrie

[@ToXiszify]

I would love to see a video of the Lerum train accident. 2 trains colliding at 110 km/h each, due to a mistake in communication between an electrician and the train dispatcher. Fantastic videos as usual John.

[@RobbertsTravelGuides]

Ruhe in Frieden an alle die umgekommen sind bei der GAU von Eschede. Rest in Peace to all the killed people that died in the disaster from Eschede. Especially me as a trainfan/commuter this hurts to this day.

[@Knoool]

YES JOHN! I always wanted you to cover one of the deasasters that happened in my home country, and Eschede is a very fascinating one at that. As always keep up the great work and greetings from germany.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you

[@NathanSimonGottemer]

I am an engineer by profession (software but still). Whoever made the decision to use wheels that hadn’t been tested on a train carrying 200+ people should have had their license revoked and been tried for criminal negligence. They always drill into us never to push untested code to production, and this is in a field where your mistakes don’t always result in major disasters. It’s just something you don’t do. I went “WTF” and paused the video for like 10 minutes just from the sheer shock of having heard they had done this.

[@jorgevillavicencio427]

Thank you for inadvertently settling an argument. The Shinkansen bullet train debuted its services for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The argument was that an acquaintance claimed that the Olympics are always held in July-August. Not so, both Tokyo and the following games in Mexico city were held in October. The Olympic flame must always be lit on the summer solstice in Olympia, however, the host country can hold the games based on their best climatic conditions. Had Rio hold the games in July or August, it would have been during the winter.

[@carpemkarzi]

Thanks John. And stay warm- from a currently very chilly and snowy corner of Alberta Canada

[@PlainlyDifficult]

I’d love to go Canada on holiday

[@MissMillieEllie]

Please, don't ever stop telling what's the weather like where you're at at the time of the recording! I don't know why, but I noticed that I anxiously WAIT for that part :D I find it always so interesting! And it makes you feel a real person :3

[@mesiagamer5217]

The Moment you started explaining the relient wheel design I immediately saw the issue that will pop up.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

😬

[@Happymali10]

Great, now go work at DB in the 90s and tell them not to cut testing short and not to substitute ultrasound with flashlights.

[@HenryLoenwind]

@@Happymali10 I'd suggest secretly adding an explanation of what those kinds of readings on the ultrasonics mean into their documentation, so they are not discarded as nonsensical.

[@Happymali10]

@@HenryLoenwind Oh they knew, it was just that the ultrasound-stuff was new so they were basically field-testing and occasionally got wrong results (false alarms), and wanted to cut down on those. So...flashlights. Same group of people also decided to cut testing short in general, so....no surprise.

[@7inrain]

I traveled with the early ICE 1 more than once during the 90's and I remember quite vividly the very distinct rumble that you had during the ride and that ultimately lead to the fateful decision of introducing the rubber ring into the wheels.

[@MrTwitchis]

You always making such great content! From the video animations and slides to the music you add. Always a great day when a video is posted!

[@mattwilliams3456]

I saw the ICE train when it did a tour of the US and as a kid it definitely impressed me. Sad disaster. I love the content as always, but do always feel a bit disappointed when there is no “here on a map” moment.

[@markh.6687]

(Takes out extendible pointer, extends it, points at map showing Eschede).

[@RailRide]

I saw it run on the Northeast Corridor. Somewhere in my collection of tapes is a recording I made with a VHS camcorder while passing it in a commuter train (it had stopped waiting to cross over to our track for an unsheduled stop due to a sick passenger). I later got a shot of it passing through New Brunswick, NJ. Some day I'll find the footage and digitize it for uploading.

[@brad7073]

I love the way you broke down the crash by car in a visual thank you! Super good work

[@moiraatkinson]

I recently started watching this channel and I’m being really impressed by the understanding of the technical issues involved and the fantastic explanations given. These are well researched topics which are brilliantly presented.

[@kaileim970]

Love hearing from you John , from your spot in S London, UK. Interesting, informative and I just like your voice/style and the way you respect the story. Well done.

[@sagittariuslibra6824]

I can still remember the day of the accident very well. I live only 30 km from Eschede and have traveled this route several times with the ICE. Some of the first responders who were there are still traumatized to this day. It was a terrible accident...

[@Underestimated37]

Of all the Seconds from Disaster Episodes that ever aired, the one about this disaster stuck with me the longest, it’s just so simple a cause; and the long term impact was so great. Hoping at some point we’ll get to see a video on Cyclone Tracy; the storm that (along with extremely poor urban planning) literally wiped a city out.

[@themandolinmaniac]

Another very nice job, John. Thanks so much!

[@lovesiriusblack]

Thank you for your excellent work!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you

[@jhs123456]

First thanks for all the great videos. A few corrections: The train could have 9 to 14 middle cars, usually 12 were used and nowadays the trains are shortened to 9 cars for better acceleration and because some cars are beyond repair after more than 30 years. The power of all series power cars is 4800kW, the ICExperimental had 3650kW as it was shorter. The first livery had thyristor, the second had GTO and now basically all got new power electronics with IGBT.

[@petestaint8312]

The best channel on KZbin! Thanks for posting. 👍

[@iaminhere6022]

Finally! I was asking for this for loooong time! Thank you for covering it!

[@wolly4u]

I remember very well that day. The whole nation was shocked. Even nearly getting involved personally. Some of my relatives booked exactly that train to go from Kassel to Hamburg this day. So we were very worried about their well-being. Later on we heard that they delayed and missed the train. They were happy that their mischief turned into a fortune.

[@JohnSmith-fd6nb]

Another great clip. Thanks !

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you

[@abhorsen228]

I've just found your channel and wanted to say not only do I love your videos, but I appreciate that you list both the metric and US Customary values. I don't have a good head for numbers, so it keeps me from having to bust out my calculator to decipher the metric.

[@niftybass]

Thanks, Plainly John!

[@bauhnguefyische667]

It’s fine, don’t worry about it … - Famous last words

[@hirisk761]

ah yes the old Soviet mantra

[@markh.6687]

"Fireproof"; "Unsinkable"; "Impossible".

[@Chellz801]

I don’t know if you’ve covered the Valhalla crossing accident from 2015 but I think you’d do a very good job on it. It’s a pretty gruesome accident that even new railroad employees learn about pretty quickly in NY.

[@ljenk5]

Fantastic as always, thanks John 😊

[@reversalmushroom]

I like how you make me aware of so many obscure disasters I never heard of.

[@muhammadirfanataulawal7630]

Great video! So sad to see this event happening. I remember watching this on seconds from disaster series, it was scary. Also I'm shocked that they were opting to use steel belt instead of reprofiling the wheel during routine maintenance to mitigate the uneven wear. For example, Japan Railways always reprofile the wheels on their Shinkansen in case of any uneven surface.

[@DistractedGlobeGuy]

Yes, that's what the Japanese do-but this is the EU, where the word "efficiency" is considered a vulgar curse and safety is a tertiary concern at best.

[@Wolfspaule]

High-ups are imune to criminal charges, no matter what or where!

[@PlainlyDifficult]

True

[@JasonFlorida]

I had no idea, thanks for sharing John! Another superbly done video! I hope you warm up soon! Sending warmth from Florida, USA!

[@johngavin1175]

What warmth,I'm freezing my ass off here in Polk County,ha ha. Clermont is nice,my wife wants to move there.

[@JasonFlorida]

@@johngavin1175 hi neighbor! yesterday during the day it was nice. This comment didn't age well. I bet 60 degrees would be considered a warm front in London though.

[@johngavin1175]

@@JasonFlorida 60 in London would most likely be pleasant for sure.

[@awol354]

Gotta say, you are first class. I get not only the actual event, but a proper history lesson, leading up to the disaster. I am doing your videos as a marathon. Keep calm and give us more videos!!

[@joethebrowser2743]

Mr South London good to see you. 👍🏻🇬🇧

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank youb

[@maccook1692]

Hi plainly difficult! I know it's not nearly as big of a disaster as you usually do. But the icefields parkway bus disaster in Alberta would be an interesting one to see you cover!

[@mauricedavis2160]

Excellent episode John(Jon), thank you!!!🙏😢🚄❣️

[@darkerco804]

you know.. you'd be a great thomas & friends narator but hold on, I mean i feel bad about the tragedy and all, but the way you read it in such a soothing maner. it's like bed time stories for adult. love it.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you! Id love to narrate Thomas

[@Papinak2]

This video reminded me of another train-bridge collision in Studenka, Czechia, in 2008. Mismanagement of the bridge construction caused collapse right in front of a passing train. 8 were killed... I think that it would fit this channel. By the way, another collision (train with a truck) happened a few kilometers from the crash site, 7 years later.

[@agentofashcroft]

Have you considered doing an episode on the Boston Molasses disaster?

[@PlainlyDifficult]

It’s in my list thanks for the suggestion

[@johnr797]

I dunno, sounds like that might be a bit of a slow one

[@Justin.Franks]

@@johnr797 Booooooooo

[@omnibussy]

@@Justin.Franks i, too, am booing

[@garrysekelli6776]

That is the most hillarious disaster ever.

[@StarTrekkker]

Thank you for this great breakdown of the events.

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dennis2376]

Thank you and have a great week. From a chilly and wet lower mainland in BC. :)

[@coffiekittie]

Great video, as usual! In the theme of rail disasters, i would love to see a video by you about the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster of July 2013, Quebec (Canada)!

[@maryeckel9682]

That was a bad one!

[@DavidCowie2022]

The "Fascinating Horror" channel has a video about Lac-Megantic. If you like this channel, then you'll probably like that one too.

[@amrastheluckywoof5524]

I know another train disaster that might be interesting to cover: Buizingen, named after the Belgian city where it took place. Two trains had a frontal collision, due to one of the trains missing a signal that supposedly had been red. There is a lot that can be said about this disaster, and it is a quite complicated case.

[@needsmorebass94]

I really love this channel. Keep up the good work!

[@missykowalewski]

Another great video. Stay warm. It’s 3 degrees here in the SW region of Missouri.

[@Hansengineering]

Holy shit they actually tried dual track drifting!

[@elvpse]

Lmao

[@markh.6687]

Yeah....they did.....didn't end so well though.....(yikes!)

[@TotallyNotRedneckYall]

I believe I've posted this before, but I think the New London, TX school explosion of 1937 would be a good topic for this channel. A school admin got a good deal on some LNG for the school, iirc it was coming right from the gas fields and didn't have any scent added yet, so the school had no way to know when the pipes started leaking...

[@latlatko]

yes this seems like the perfect video to watch on my 5 hour train trip today.

[@sandybruce9092]

I,learn so much great info and just interesting stuff from these Videos - thank you Plainly Difficult!

[@Fuchswinter]

Rail accidents of this magnitude are so rare it leaves a major scar. I was too young to remember when this happened but my mom sometimes talked about it (despite us not living anywhere near Eschede). A few years back there was also a major accident in Bavaria, I believe two ICEs colliding (?) that was extremely scary to see on TV.

[@jz_photography]

It was two commuter trains colliding head on

[@RaDeus87]

This is just perfect viewing material for me right now, who has to spend 5 hours on a train 💋👌 I just find the timing grimly humorous 😅 In a few days I'll spend 3+11 hours on a plane, do you think you can cram out a nice aircrash video for me to watch by then ? 😅

[@PlainlyDifficult]

😂😂try these two of my videos for that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHWonHtmr8lmfJo kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4fZfJ5jp6x9g6c

[@markh.6687]

They showed an airplane crash movie on the plane in the funny movie "Airplane!"

[@martinseelig585]

Oh, i've been waiting for that one!

[@frantisekcerny6677]

I was so waiting for this disaster on this channel! glad its here :))

[@PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you!

[@ItsJustLisa]

I remember seeing a documentary on one of the US cable channels (Science Channel maybe?). I think it was part of the series “Seconds From Disaster”. It’s just unfathomable that the train manager didn’t believe the gentleman who told him that a chunk of wheel assembly had been thrown through the floor of the passenger car! If it had happened just 10 years later, that passenger could have showed him a picture taken on his cellphone and 101 people likely wouldn’t haven’t died.

[@ondrejsedlak4935]

One thing to note about the Shinkansen is that this concept actually came from France, where they were developing high speed trains but with one difference, that being the French trains were to run on existing tracks, which limited their potential future speeds. Japan took the concept further and built dedicated lines while building on French ideas.

[@indahooddererste]

Most of the TGV drive on their own tracks either especially between large cities. ICE trains use rather often normal tracks where they are limited to 160kmh.

[@Yoshi-wt4lg]

@@indahooddererste kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKGvl2eDarSLm7M

[@Yoshi-wt4lg]

@@indahooddererste kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqXNf2aBgtBmbrs

[@anteshell]

A few coincidental happenstances combined with my insatiable curiosity had me to learn literally everything about this accident just a week ago. And I still watched this with the same curiosity.

[@KimJongBeIllinDaily]

Man this is wild. I guess you never really think about something like this happening when you take trains a lot with no issue. I remember being in Japan in the mid 2000s, and the bullet trains were a great experience. Riding past Mt Fuji and seeing the countryside in Japan was something else.

[@dawsonstone3583]

So sad 😢, but great video! Are there any Italian train disasters that warrant ur expertise/ a video?

[@PlainlyDifficult]

I don’t know I’ll have a look thank you

[@benji274]

Think there was a bad one in Balvano, Italy in 1944

[@JK061996]

On the freight side I'd like to suggest the 2009 Viareggio disaster, a train carrying LPG derailed at the station and ignited a massive fire. On the passenger side a recent example is the 2016 Andria-Corato collision, when two trains crashed head-on due to the obsolete telephonic block signaling.

[@DL-RC]

One week before this disaster happened, my mother and I drove in that exact same ICE. It’s mind boggling to think about it even all the years later. I can remember that my mom was telling me the name of the train. And who mr. Röntgen was. It was something special for me, because it was my first ever trip in a ICE. I was 6 years old at the time. Thank for sharing this video.

[@kongomongo2]

Eschede had huge social impact imo. When I started as a firefighter ten years later, we had some trainer here and there talk about that day nearly every week. This left quit the impression under first responders even hundreds of KMs away.

[@chellesama8256]

Still in the commercials but I am SO excited for this! I've seen it on Seconds ti Disaster and I will LOVE a more in depth look!