ICE caught fire on German High Speed Line

k-c-p · 12 Oct 2018

Today morning an ICE caught fire on the high speed line between Cologne and Frankfurt. The media images paint a rather dramatic picture. Luckily nobody was injured as all 510 passengers on board could be evacuated in time.

https://www.express.de/news/panoram...0-fahrgaeste-evakuiert---a3-gesperrt-31429150
https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/brand-ice-a3-100.html

The line and the motorway next to it (A3) are closed. Trains are either cancelled or diverted via the Rhine Valley resulting in severe delays. I guess this will continue for a few days until everything has been cleared up and repaired.

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Bletchleyite · 12 Oct 2018

Wow, that looks serious! Wonder what the cause was? EMU fires are very rare as there isn't a lot to burn - perhaps something in the buffet car? Though it seems to be the coach *next* to the buffet car that has taken the brunt of it - you can tell which is the buffet as it has no end door at that end.

YorkshireBear · 12 Oct 2018

Wow. Those pictures certainly don't paint the same picture as our train fires here. Where mass drama ensues for a bit of smoke.

westcoaster · 12 Oct 2018

That has burnt all the way down to the frame , it reminds me of an airplane fire and how the crown burns.

It apprears that it is the pantograph car involved, are the transformers underslung on these ice trains.
Edit: appears to show transformers in the vacinity of fire https://twitter.com/bpol_koblenz/status/1050660953992228869?s=19

Groningen · 12 Oct 2018

1 direction of the autobahn seems to be open again. It seems that the HSL is closed for at least 2 days.

33Hz · 12 Oct 2018

Interesting the pax in the end car went out of the windows rather than the door at the cab end. Does a complete loss of power keep the doors shut on these trains?

See also video at https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/video...uf-offener-Strecke-Feuer-article20667799.html

AlexNL · 12 Oct 2018

Bletchleyite said:
Wow, that looks serious! Wonder what the cause was? EMU fires are very rare as there isn't a lot to burn - perhaps something in the buffet car?

According to the log, an axle was on fire on coach 33:

This coach carries a transformer underneath, the transformer oil might have contributed to the intensity of the fire.

There were 500 passengers on board, but nobody in a wheelchair, no prams either. Everyone made it out unharmed.

TRAX · 12 Oct 2018

Knowing Siemens, it wouldn’t surprise me if the train was at fault.

AlexNL · 12 Oct 2018

The infrastructure has been badly damaged: the track is damaged, the overhead line is down, and the LZB line is damaged on potentially both running lines. The expectation is that one line can be reopened to traffic Sunday afternoon.

30907 · 12 Oct 2018

33Hz said:
Interesting the pax in the end car went out of the windows rather than the door at the cab end. Does a complete loss of power keep the doors shut on these trains?

See also video at https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/video...uf-offener-Strecke-Feuer-article20667799.html

The Koblenz police tweet shows the end door open. In the circs using an emergency exit as well might have been prudent.

jaapstam · 12 Oct 2018

Hello friends,

Chris here from Germany, working for Deutsche Bahn.

Having watched and seen multiple videos and photos of the incident and knowing about safety procedures, I am pretty sure that passengers did not evacuate via the windows but using the doors.

The windows seem to have been destroyed from the outside by the firefighters.

The cause of the fire has not been in the buffet car! At ICE 3 units there are more than the buffet car having no doors. And the buffet car does have doors at least at one end. It's the ICE 1 units that don't have one.

Multiple things are possible as a cause of the fire. Let's wait for official investigation results and be thankful that nobody seems to be hurt.

jaapstam · 12 Oct 2018

As the question was asked here in #6 posting: a complete loss of power does NOT result in the doors not being able to be opened.

Shaw S Hunter · 12 Oct 2018

For those who don't understand/read German it is worth pointing out that the situation might have had a less favourable outcome were it not for the quick thinking of an off-duty rail police officer travelling on the train. This officer's rail knowledge meant they were able to ensure passengers evacuated the train only on the cess side and also helped keep the evacuation under a degree of control rather than have possibly panicked passengers wandering around the scene.

jaapstam · 12 Oct 2018

Shaw S Hunter said:
For those who don't understand/read German it is worth pointing out that the situation might have had a less favourable outcome were it not for the quick thinking of an off-duty rail police officer travelling on the train. This officer's rail knowledge meant they were able to ensure passengers evacuated the train only on the cess side and also helped keep the evacuation under a degree of control rather than have possibly panicked passengers wandering around the scene.

No doubt it helps to have people on board which are trained to handle such situations.

But I wouldn't over-emphasize the role of the police man (there is no railway police existing in Germany anymore!). If he had not been there, someone else would have pulled the alarm.

The on-board staff is also trained regularly to deal with incidents which require to evacuate passengers. This includes, of course, uncontrollable fires.

SHD · 13 Oct 2018

Bletchleyite said:
Wow, that looks serious! Wonder what the cause was? EMU fires are very rare as there isn't a lot to burn - perhaps something in the buffet car? Though it seems to be the coach *next* to the buffet car that has taken the brunt of it - you can tell which is the buffet as it has no end door at that end.

As was noted by another poster, do not forget that there are two 5 MW transformers in an ICE 3 - and that transformers designed for 16.7 Hz AC current are especially massive (notably when compared to similarly-rated transformers for 50 Hz current) and that they generate higher losses through heat dissipation.

There are more than 1,600 L of oil in each of these transformers. Assuming that the heating value of this oil is similar to Diesel fuel (and that is a conversative hypothesis), it represents a very sizeable amount of thermal energy. Certainly enough to burn down the complete car.

30907 · 13 Oct 2018

jaapstam said:
No doubt it helps to have people on board which are trained to handle such situations.

But I wouldn't over-emphasize the role of the police man (there is no railway police existing in Germany anymore!). If he had not been there, someone else would have pulled the alarm.

The on-board staff is also trained regularly to deal with incidents which require to evacuate passengers. This includes, of course, uncontrollable fires.

The press report was quoting a police spokesperson who, quite naturally, highlighted his colleague's involvement

duesselmartin · 13 Oct 2018

German radio news claim it was a transformer fire.

jaapstam · 13 Oct 2018

30907 said:
The press report was quoting a police spokesperson who, quite naturally, highlighted his colleague's involvement

Seems evident he was involved. But everyone else could have helped in the same way. Need not be a policeman.

Anyway, good he was on-board and reacted in the way he did.

jaapstam · 13 Oct 2018

duesselmartin said:
German radio news claim it was a transformer fire.

I was surprised how fast the cause was clear. But if they communicate it so quickly, it seems to be very obvious and clear. Always good if no long unclear search is needed.

AlexNL · 13 Oct 2018

DB have just announced on Twitter that they do not expect the line between Siegburn/Bonn and Montabour to reopen until the end of the week. The damage caused by the fire must be substantial.

30907 · 13 Oct 2018

jaapstam said:
I was surprised how fast the cause was clear. But if they communicate it so quickly, it seems to be very obvious and clear. Always good if no long unclear search is needed.

Fairly obvious that the transformer oil caught fire, the question is WHY? A fault in the transformer itself, or an external cause?

leshuttle · 15 Oct 2018

I'm booked to travel this way on Thursday for Nuremberg from London via Brussels and Frankfurt :frown:

. The Deutsche Bahn website seems to keep changing with different alternative route options, some suggesting to go via Paris and Stuttgart however I doubt Eurostar would accept my Sparpreis ticket on that route.

k-c-p · 15 Oct 2018

As the fleet Brussels ICE and staff is relatively small, it is very likely that the ICE will terminate in Cologne and you would be required to change to other trains there to got to the Frankfurt (these trains will run via the Rhine Valley Line).

My guess would be that you will end up with a delay of 90min to 2h (so will get at least 25% of your money back

). I would stick with the route via Frankfurt because services between Frankfurt and Nuremburg are much more frequent that between Karlsruhe/Stuttgart.

LNW-GW Joint · 15 Oct 2018

leshuttle said:
I'm booked to travel this way on Thursday for Nuremberg from London via Brussels and Frankfurt . The Deutsche Bahn website seems to keep changing with different alternative route options, some suggesting to go via Paris and Stuttgart however I doubt Eurostar would accept my Sparpreis ticket on that route.

I would have thought a routeing via Hannover to Köln would work best (high speed most of the way on both legs).

30907 · 15 Oct 2018

LNW-GW Joint said:
I would have thought a routeing via Hannover to Köln would work best (high speed most of the way on both legs).

As k-c-p has guessed, some (not all) Brussels trains are only running to Koeln.
According to www.bahn.de Nuremberg via Hannover takes 9 hours from Brussels as the connections don't work, while the traditional Rhine Valley route on an IC is 7 1/2 hours.
I notice that using the RE services via Siegen comes up as an option too, but the connections are tight.

jaapstam · 15 Oct 2018

leshuttle said:
I'm booked to travel this way on Thursday for Nuremberg from London via Brussels and Frankfurt . The Deutsche Bahn website seems to keep changing with different alternative route options, some suggesting to go via Paris and Stuttgart however I doubt Eurostar would accept my Sparpreis ticket on that route.

My advice is to remain on your planned route but you will definitely be approx. two hours later in Nuremberg.

It might be that your Brussels - Frankfurt ICE runs all the way to Frankfurt (diverted between Cologne and Frankfurt) and you can change to a train to Nuremberg in Frankfurt (minimum one fast train per hour from here).

If your ICE from Brussels terminates in Cologne, you can change there to another ICE which is also diverted but runs directly to Nuremberg.

All the best!

AlexNL · 15 Oct 2018

Some pictures of the damage to the infrastructure have been posted by the Lokführer page on Facebook. Rumours have it that a reopening is not expected until the timetable change.

Bletchleyite · 15 Oct 2018

I guess because it’s slab track?

AlexNL · 15 Oct 2018

Yup. It'll all have to be rebuilt.

Gerald Fiennes · 15 Oct 2018

Surely not more than a couple of weeks plus another few days at reduced speed whilst the concrete cures and strengthens properly? The hardest bit will be to design a 'patch' to attach the new section to the existing slabtrack, whilst preserving its strength.

ICE caught fire on German High Speed Line

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