Suddenly two trains approach each other between Ostbahnhof and St.-Martin-Strasse. Both brake in time and thus prevent a collision. The federal police are now investigating how this could have happened.
What the federal police reported at the weekend as a seemingly harmless “irregularity in rail traffic” could have turned out badly for the passengers on two S-Bahn trains. On Saturday morning at around 8.40 a.m. between the Ostbahnhof and St.-Martin-Straße stations, they suddenly converged on the same track. Because the respective engine drivers, a man and a woman, recognized the approaching danger and the safety systems also triggered the emergency braking of the trains, nothing happened. Both S-Bahn came to a standstill without endangering the passengers. The federal police are now investigating how the incident could have happened.
According to the first interviews, a train driver driving out of town from the Ostbahnhof arrived at St.-Martin-Straße at 8.25 a.m. and thought he was already at the Giesing station, where he should have turned around according to the timetable. He parked the train, changed the driver’s cab and then drove back towards Ostbahnhof. From there, however, a train driver came towards him with her train.
Why she had received the signal for free travel is now just as much a topic of investigation as the question of why the train driver could be wrong in the station and then simply drove off again on St.-Martin-Strasse, although at first glance he was had not obtained or received any approval from the dispatcher. An alcohol test on the man was negative.