Fire brigade on a mission for hours Drachenfelsbahn car derailed

Königswinter · On Monday morning, a wagon of the Drachenfelsbahn derailed during a shunting operation. The fire brigade needed several hours to put the wagon back on the tracks.

 It took the Bonn fire brigade around six hours to get a derailed Drachenfelsbahn car back on track on Monday.

It took the Bonn fire brigade around six hours to get a derailed Drachenfelsbahn car back on track on Monday.

Foto: Feuerwehr Bonn

On Monday morning, the Bonn Fire Brigade was called into action in Königswinter to bring a derailed carriage back on track shortly after the valley station of the Drachenfelsbahn. The Königswinter fire brigade had asked for the help of their colleagues from Bonn because they have the appropriate technical equipment to bring the railway back on track. "We have an equipment unit with a fire brigade crane and an equipment truck," said a spokesperson for the Bonn fire brigade.

Because it was not possible to simply lift the wagon with the crane and put it back on the track due to the conditions on site, the wagon of the Drachenfelsbahn was lifted piece by piece using hydraulic presses and then put back on the tracks using a shifting device. Due to the slope, a lot of caution and calm was necessary. According to Thomas Scharf, operations manager of the Drachenfelsbahn and managing director of Bergbahnen im Siebengebirge GmbH, one of the Drachenfelsbahn cars has an empty weight of 13 tonnes. According to the spokesperson, ten firefighters from the Bonn fire brigade were on the scene with four vehicles. In addition, three colleagues from the Königswinter fire brigade were there. It took almost six hours to get the railway back on track. At about 5 p.m., the Bonn fire brigade's mission was over.

Railway service suspended during the operation

During the operation, the Drachenfelsbahn had to be shut down because the electricity had to be cut off, as Thomas Scharf told the GA. In the evening, one train was still running because an event had taken place at the Drachenfels. On Tuesday morning, the Drachenfelsbahn was running regularly again, although repair work was still being carried out on the points. The derailed wagon had not suffered any significant damage. According to Thomas Scharf, the cause of the derailment was a mistake by the driver of the railcar. The driver was not injured. As it was a shunting trip, there were no other persons on board. According to Scharf, it is extremely rare for the Drachenfelsbahn to derail. The last time a Drachenfelsbahn wagon derailed was on 11 June 2009.

The carriage of the Drachenfelsbahn in Königswinter was on its way up and jumped off the tracks at the middle station of Schloss Drachenfels when it crossed a switch, because a railway employee had ordered the switch to be set even though the second carriage had not yet crossed it, according to the Königswinter fire brigade's operational documentation. At that time, the Bonn fire brigade also provided assistance, and it took five hours before the carriage was back on the track. At that time, 17 passengers and the driver were on board. No one was injured then either. A carriage also derailed in 2003.

The most tragic accident in the history of the Drachenfelsbahn occurred on 14 September 1958. On the way down, the locomotive derailed together with the first of a total of three carriages and overturned. 17 people lost their lives, 112 passengers were injured, some seriously. The train was travelling much too fast at the time, the brakes failed.

(Original text: Lydia Schauff; Translation: Mareike Graepel)

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