Halle (dpa) – The locomotive must have been there out of nowhere. Around three o’clock on Friday evening, the group of workers is busy working on the tracks. All around the dark and cold of the night. Snowfall. It still remains to be clarified why the locomotive enters the construction site during the work. A 27-year-old security guard is killed and his 54-year-old colleague is seriously injured. Two workers aged 54 and 43 were injured, a federal police spokeswoman said.
Other colleagues have to witness the accident. You will be entrusted with pastoral care. The driver, who was traveling from Magdeburg-Rothensee to Halle in his vehicle, was in shock, the spokeswoman said.
Deutsche Bahn is ‘deeply affected’
Deutsche Bahn expresses its condolences shortly after the accident. “The accident that took place last night near Halle-Ammendorf affects us deeply,” a DB spokesman said. “Our thoughts go out to the worker who died in the accident and to those injured, as well as their families and friends. We extend our deepest condolences to the victim’s family. We send our best wishes to the injured.”
According to the railway, the accident occurred on a construction site, work had been carried out on the tracks. The Federal Police and the Criminal Police determined the course of the incident. What role did the beginning of winter with snow play? Human error, technical causes? Much remains to be clarified. According to a federal police spokeswoman, the investigation into the cause will take some time.
Again and again train accidents with victims
Nationwide there have always been train accidents with killed railroad employees. Two technicians died in Saxony-Anhalt in December 2016. An ICE had captured the 56- and 61-year-old men who had just been on duty. In March of this year, a 21-year-old construction worker died on a railway line between Bremen and Osnabrück. A local train caught him there and killed him.
In November last year, a Central Franconian railway employee was hit by a train on the section between Treuchtlingen and Würzburg. In August 2021, a 22-year-old railway employee died at the Konz-Karthaus station in Rhineland-Palatinate. He just wanted to fix a fault, as the Federal Police said at the time.
According to an order from the authorities, the section of the route was initially closed. DB long-distance trains were rerouted via Leipzig/Halle airport. Trains on the ICE lines from Hamburg/Berlin to Frankfurt am Main and Munich were affected. In regional traffic, failures occurred on the lines to Sangerhausen and Naumburg. Freight traffic was also affected by the temporary closure. A forecast for the lifting of the blockade was not yet possible on Friday morning.
Train travelers in Germany still had to wait for weeks after two freight trains collided near Leiferde in Lower Saxony. Long-distance trains are diverted. From December 11, the trains should run according to plan again according to plan.
