After the train accident on the Pottendorfer line in Münchendorf (Mödling district) on Monday evening with one fatality, three seriously injured and nine slightly injured, investigations to clarify the cause continued on Tuesday. A “Ventus” train on the Raaberbahn derailed. One of the six cars of the double set crashed into a field. A second also remained lying sideways on the embankment next to the tracks.
The district fire brigade command Mödling reported that the overhead line was torn down and lay across the accident site. The FF Münchendorf, Achau and Guntramsdorf were alarmed at 6:27 p.m. The trapped train driver had to be freed by the emergency services with hydraulic rescue equipment. According to the district command, the 25-year-old from Burgenland, who was killed in the accident, was trapped under the train.
The 25-year-old, who died in the train accident, had acted as a violinist in the Eisenstadt Cathedral Music St. Martin. The Diocese of Eisenstadt expressed its grief in a broadcast on Tuesday afternoon.
The accident happened on a straight stretch of road. According to Stefan Loidl from the Lower Austria State Police Headquarters, the train driver, a 53-year-old Hungarian citizen, and 56 passengers were on board the train, which was on its way from Deutschkreutz to Vienna Central Station. Accordingly, 44 people remained unharmed in the accident. They were looked after and cared for in the nearby disaster relief center in Munich village of the Red Cross in Lower Austria.
According to Loidl, the train’s tachograph was secured by order of the public prosecutor’s office in Wiener Neustadt. According to the police spokesman, an ÖBB machine crane was used on Tuesday to recover the two overturned wagons and put the other four back on the tracks.
Rescue services and the police were deployed in Munich village with a large contingent of helpers and, among other things, four emergency helicopters. One injured person was flown to the UKH Vienna-Meidling and the University Hospital St. Pölten, said Philipp Gutlederer from “Notruf NÖ”. Other victims were transported to the state clinics in Baden and Wiener Neustadt.
Because of the accident, no journeys were possible in the Achau – Wampersdorf section of the Pottendorfer line, ÖBB said. A rail replacement service with buses was set up. In a broadcast late Monday evening, “serious damage to the railway infrastructure” was also reported. The extent of the repair work and the associated duration “cannot yet be estimated” and would “only be known after a comprehensive damage assessment”.