Status: 11/17/2022 09:35 a.m
Two freight trains collided near Leiferde (Gifhorn district) in the early morning. Highly explosive gas escapes from two tankers. The Berlin-Hanover railway line is closed.
According to information from the NDR in Lower Saxony, the two freight trains collided around half past three on the Berlin-Hannover express route. The collision happened between Leiferde and Dalldorf. A freight train stopped at a stop signal, then a freight train driving behind it drove up for reasons that have not yet been clarified, said a spokesman for the fire brigade. The driver of the train that ran up was injured and taken to a hospital, the driver of the front train was slightly injured.
Gas escapes from two tank wagons
According to a spokesman for the federal police, two tank wagons overturned in the collision and two more derailed. In total, the approaching train consisted of 25 tank wagons filled with propane gas. The gas escapes from two tankers. How much was initially unclear. The gas must first escape completely, said the federal police spokesman. The clean-up work and the investigation should take at least a day, he announced. In addition, several hundred meters of overhead line were torn down in the accident. Experts from the Federal Bureau of Railway Accident Investigation should now investigate the scene of the accident.
No danger to the population
The gas leak makes for a complex deployment: Rescuers could only get to the scene of the accident with heavy respiratory protection. In addition, the mobile operations control center could not be set up directly at the scene of the accident, but only at a greater distance at the train station in Leiferde, it said. A spokesman for the fire brigade said there was no danger to the population because the scene of the accident was in the middle of a forest.
Delays and cancellations in long-distance and regional transport
The accident has significant consequences for rail traffic – for regional and long-distance trains. The Berlin-Hanover railway line was closed in both directions. Several ICE and IC connections have to be rerouted or fail. Are affected after Information from Deutsche Bahn the following connections:
- ICE trains NRW – Hamm – Hanover – Berlin will be diverted and will be delayed by around 60 minutes.
- ICE trains Switzerland / Frankfurt(M) – Kassel – Berlin will be diverted and will be delayed by around 60 minutes.
- IC trains Hanover – Stendal – Leipzig – Dresden are cancelled.
- IC trains Cologne – Dortmund – Hanover – Magdeburg – Leipzig – Dresden are canceled between Cologne Hbf and Braunschweig Hbf.
- IC trains Amsterdam – Osnabrück – Hanover – Berlin end/start in Hanover Hbf. The stops in Wolfsburg Hbf, Stendal Hbf, Berlin-Spandau, Berlin Hbf and Berlin Ostbahnhof are no longer available.
- all IC/ICE trains in this section are cancelled
Regional rail traffic is also affected: the private operator Enno announced that a replacement bus service had been set up on the Hanover-Wolfsburg route. The company assumes that the section between Wolfsburg and Lehrte will be closed for days.
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