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Railway Accidents of Great Britain and Europe Their causes & consequences
Railway Accidents of Great Britain and Europe Their causes & consequences by Ascanio Schneider & Armin Mase
Hard Cover with dust jacket
Copyright 1968
334 Pages Indexed.
Contents
Preface11
Classification of railway accidents according to their causes15
Classification of railway accidents according to their effects18
Giitsch tunnel in Lucerne (Switzerland)35
Tiischerz (Switzerland)42
Campo Negro near Villafranca del Campo (Spain)47
Aisgill (Great Britain)49
Lewisham (Great Britain)55
Voghera (Italy)61
Acquabella block station near Milan (Italy)65
Harrow (Great Britain)67
Pomponne near Lagny (France)74
Block station II between MUhlheim on Main and Offenbach (Germany)78
Courville (France)81
Bellinzona (Switzerland)83
Langenwang (Austria)91
Northallerton (Great Britain)96
Norton Fitzwarren (Great Britain)102
Batasse near Sion/Sitten (Switzerland)108
MUllheim (Germany)113
Monza (Italy)125
Benevento (Italy)129
Bever (Switzerland)132
Tunnel near Mesnay-Arbois (France)134
Widenswil (Switzerland)137
Hawes Junction (Great Britain)143
Oerlikon near Zurich (Switzerland)151
South Croydon (Great Britain)155
Quintinshill near Gretna Green (Great Britain)160
Villeneuve (Switzerland)168
Bennau near Biberbrugg (Switzerland)170
Kiesen (Switzerland)180
Schonenwerd (Switzerland)191
Lampertheim (Germany)194
Interlaken east (Switzerland)196
Winsford (Great Britain)202
Lachen (Switzerland)207
Vidalengo near Treviglio (Italy)209
Dietikon (Switzerland)212
Schiipfheim (Switzerland)215
Sankt Martin-Sittich (Austria)218
Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne (France)222
Armagh (Northern Ireland)226
Sissach (Switzerland)232
Weedon (Great Britain)235
Firth of Tay (Great Britain)238
Birs bridge between Miinchenstein and Basle (Switzerland)244
London Hither Green (Great Britain)254
Paris Gare de Montparnasse (France)261
Domodossola (Italy)262
Pianotondo/Giornico (Switzerland)266
Santa Maria de la Alameda (Spain)269
Cassano d'Adda (Italy)272
Borgallo tunnel between Borgo Val di Taro and Grondola-Guinadi (Italy); Gotthard tunnel between Airolo and Goschenen (Switzerland)275
Marchtrenk (Austria)278
Ricken tunnel (Switzerland)280
Armi tunnel near Balvano (Italy)284
Monte Adone tunnel between Pianoro and Monzuno-Vado (Italy)287
Bonassola tunnel between Framura and Bonassola (Italy)290
Codogno (Italy)294
San Nicola Varco (Italy)300
Hixon near Stafford (Great Britain)303
Borghetto Adige (Italy)308
Schwarzenau (Austria)309
Accidents and traffic interruptions by avalanches (Switzerland)311
Bibliography325
Index326
'Serious railway accident in South France-ten dead' reports a Paris evening paper. And the same paper writes in another place, possibly even on the same page 'Gratifying reduction of accidents on our roads-only ten dead over the weekend'.
No, that is not an over-subtle joke by the authors of this book, but such a report reflects exactly the reactions usually displayed by the public and the newspapers to the news of a railway accident on the one hand and road accidents on the other. While only a shrug of the shoulders is spared for the thousands of deaths which annually burden the roads in every land of our Continent, every railway accident is presented with heavy type in the newspapers : a generally known and yet a remarkable phenomenon.
Is it not in some way unconsciously connected with the great mass of railway vehicles, with their weight and speed? That pedestrian, who crosses the street just in front of an approaching automobile, would never dare to do it if, from the same distance, a long train was rushing towards him at the same speed. One has involuntary respect for the appearance of a train, for the phenomenon of railways in general.
And a railway disaster-by contrast with road traffic accidents, which are generally regarded as unavoidable-belongs among the rare exceptions. Not least, the greater and smaller railway accidents have themselves led to the technical improvements which today make a journey on the railway the safest of undertakings. From the weak, primitive tracks has come the highly developed permanent way with its superb steel rails, most modern sleepers, irreproachable roadbed; a permanent way which, moreover, is continually exposed to the sharply inquiring eyes of the railway inspection authorities.
Out of the old acoustic and optical signalling methods (whistles, flags) have developed the ingeniously conceived signalling systems of the present day, with their multi-aspect light signals, with block sections, automatic magnetic train control, point locking, track circuits, and axle-counting.
The old four-wheeled wooden coaches, built in the style of stage coaches, have given place to the modern all-steel coaches with eight wheels, which to a large extent retain their form in an accident, and thus protect their living freight.
The authors of this book were concerned to present the happenings here portrayed in as objective and systematic a manner as possible and, not least, to show how they have contributed to the improvement of safety on rails, so that one can nowadays assert that the railways have really done all that is humanly possible to insure their users against harm. Naturally, this security can never be absolute, for behind every technical safety measure there stands finally a human being, the lord of creation, who unfortunately again and again makes smaller or greater mistakes.
And so in the end every railway company stands or falls by the quality of its personnel, from whom, with ever more rapidly increasing traffic,* one demands, indeed must demand, more and more. Technology can, it is true, lighten the highly responsible work of the railwayman in every grade, but it can never lift that responsibility from him. There are professions, for example that of the pharmacist, and also that of the railwayman, in which one cannot afford any false move or mistake, any relaxation of the closest attention, without the most serious consequences.
As original sources, only a few works were at our disposal. The available literature is, as appears from the bibliography at the end of this volume, very scanty. In many cases newspaper reports have had to fill the place of precise accident reports, which unfortunately were only in the rarest cases available to us. We have endeavoured to use only reputable, objective papers, and in this connection we have found it most interesting to notice how the style, layout, and not least the vocabulary of a newspaper can alter in the course of the years and decades. Where necessary, we have also put in eye-witness accounts, which help to provide a realistic picture of the occurrences. For charitable reasons we have abbreviated the names of persons who were at fault, while we give full particulars of the innocent officials.
In the more complicated cases, sketches of the situation assist the reader in orienting himself, whereas we have deliberately forgone any extensive illustration of the work, since the pictures again and again show very much the same things : wreckage, onlookers, ambulances, breakdown cranes, etc.
Finally we should like most sincerely to thank the following persons for valuable help and support : Prof. Dr Pierre Brunner, Winterthur, Mr Walter TrUb and Mr Hans Wisman, both of the Swiss Institute of Transport, Lucerne, Prof. Dr Boris Schneider, Zurich, and Mr Reinhard Kellenberger, Wallisellen. Mr Ernst Buss, now retired, and his successor Mr Werner Spiess of Orell FVerlag should here be thanked for procuring the illustrations. The situation sketches were prepared by Walter Frei, to whom we are also greatly obliged.
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