Another fatal accident on the German railways

Another fatal accident has occurred on German railways. On Monday morning, October 21, a 46-year-old train driver died while working at a depot in the city of Duisburg.

Railway workers in Germany (Photo by to.wi/flickr/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The train driver involved drove his train on the large Arcelor Mittal site in Duisburg during the night shift from Sunday to Monday. He left the driver’s cab around 3:30 am to continue controlling the locomotive remotely, a procedure that is quite common in standardized work processes. For reasons still unexplained, he fell under the locomotive and was crushed by the weight of several tons.

A colleague who discovered the seriously injured man immediately provided first aid and called 911. Paramedics revived him on the spot and took him to hospital, where he died.

Railroad workers, engineers and their supporters should take this tragedy as a signal to get active and join the Railroad Action Committee.

This latest terrible accident is the eleventh in the rail sector so far this year. Such a wave of accidents is neither natural nor inevitable, but is the result of the brutal general overhaul of the railways, which is more like a “general destruction” and involves the elimination of 30,000 jobs.

For employees of DB (Deutsche Bahn, German Railways), 2024 could be the deadliest year in a long time. Here’s a quick overview, with nine fatalities and two near-fatalities so far this year:

January 19, near Koblenz am Rhein: A 39-year-old construction company employee was hit on the track by a regional train and fatally injured.
March 1, Freilassing (Bavaria): A 32-year-old construction worker fell several meters through the canopy onto a platform and was crushed under falling concrete slabs; a second was seriously injured.
March 7, Raunheim (Hesse): A 21-year-old worker was hit and dragged by a construction train at a Deutsche Bahn construction site. He died shortly afterwards at the University Hospital of Frankfurt am Main.
March 30, Bruchsal, southern Germany: A 42-year-old track worker died during welding work. During work on the side of the track, the worker, lying on the ground, was overlooked by an excavator operator while reversing, was run over and fatally injured.
April 14, Göttingen: A 33-year-old construction worker was hit by a heavily loaded wheel loader at the south portal of the Rauheberg tunnel (renovation of the Hannover-Würzburg high-speed line). He died at the scene of the accident.
April 15, Lübeck: A railway employee (55), working as a guard at a temporarily closed level crossing, was hit by a locomotive and suffered serious injuries. The man was saved by emergency surgery, but is scarred for life.
July 1, Bretten (Karlsruhe district): A track worker (49), member of a construction crew, was hit and killed by a regional train.
September 3, Wörth (Bavaria): While shunting a locomotive, an engineer became trapped between a locomotive and a truck, which collided with the train. The driver was trapped and his legs were so badly injured that a helicopter had to take him to the nearest hospital.
October 1 near Fachingen, southern Germany: During track work on the Lahntalbahn, Fachingertunnel (Baden-Württemberg), a 55-year-old DB employee was hit by a freight train and fatally injured.
October 9, Lower Franconia: A track worker was struck and killed by an ICE high-speed train near Kitzingen at 1:30 am. The railway had deployed the 52-year-old DB employee as a security guard at a construction site.
October 21, Duisburg: A 46-year-old driver died during night shunting work for Arcelor Mittal.

This list is undoubtedly incomplete because there is no central authority that records all accidents, let alone a body that publishes everything, warns railway workers and investigates the causes to prevent accidents from happening again in the future. “We don’t know how many people die in the workplace,” labor lawyer Wolfhard Kohte recently confirmed.

Such as the German television film ZDF-Frontal Death on the tracks It recently emerged that construction teams are often sent out without the track being properly cordoned off. For the men on the track, their work becomes something of a suicide mission, knowing that there is no one to guarantee their safety or adequately warn of approaching trains.

It is striking how many accidents happen on the circuit at night. A large number of employees who work for a railway subcontractor are also affected. Neither the railway management nor the two main German railway unions, the EVG and the GDL, take proper responsibility for these employees.

The colleague who recently died in Duisburg also worked for a subcontractor of Arcelor Mittal. The steel group, which has 900 employees in Duisburg and 190,000 worldwide, issued a cold statement through its spokesperson: “Our thoughts are with the man’s family.” Neither the EVG nor the drivers’ union GDL or its regional group NRW have even mentioned the accident on their websites.

It is high time that railway workers, engineers and their supporters organize themselves into action committees independently of the trade unions! The Railway Action Committee, established a year and a half ago, is an association of railway workers, with or without trade union organisation, who are no longer prepared to tolerate the domination of the trade union apparatus.

The action committee is aimed at rail workers and drivers, regardless of whether they are employed by DB, another company or a subcontractor. Our goal is to jointly repel the massive attacks on wages, jobs and working conditions. Our allies are not the managers and union officials, many of whom sit on lucrative supervisory boards, but railway workers across Europe and the world.

In its founding resolution, the commission stated: “Our rights to decent wages and acceptable working conditions take precedence over the profit interests of the railroad board, investors and speculators.” This demand is all the more relevant because the German government is currently sacrificing the interests of the workers to meet the demands of its war policy.

In view of the growing number of accidents, we call on railway personnel to document and share relevant information with us. We will do everything we can to clarify the causes, publicize them on the WSWS and fight to put an end to such accidents.

Write to us if you have information to share with colleagues and if you would like to participate in the work of the Rail Action Committee! Write via WhatsApp, +49-163-337-8340 and register using the form below!