Germany investigates surviving train driver: crash killed 10

Feb 1, 2011, 2:32 GMT

   Berlin - A train driver who survived a head-on railway collision that killed 10 people in Germany is officially under investigation for negligent homicide, police said Monday.

   His goods train, loaded with 2,700 tons of quicklime, slammed into the front of a local passenger train on a single-line track near the eastern city of Magdeburg late Saturday. The passenger-train driver was among the dead.

   Police are focussing on the possibility that the goods train, which belonged to VPS, a subsidiary of the Salzgitter AG steel group, ran a red light.

   Witnesses said the traffic light from the other direction, which had just been passed by the passenger train before the collision, was still at green when rescuers arrived. The line lacked a safety feature that automatically stops trains that proceed past red.

   Prosecutors in Magdeburg said possible charges against the driver included negligent homicide, negligently causing bodily harm and endangering railway traffic. He survived the accident with nothing worse than bruises and shock.

   Police added that two of the 23 injured were still in critical condition on Monday. Four injured were visitors from outside Germany, hailing from Georgia, Kazahstan, Portugal and Brazil.

   Of the dead, only three, including the driver, have been identified so far, with the others disfigured by the crash.

   The passenger train, operated by the Harz-Elbe-Express company, is believed to have been travelling at close to 100 kilometres per hour, the speed limit for the track, at the time of the collision.

   Police rejected media speculation that the driver might have been riding in the second of two locomotives hauling the quicklime train, saying there was no evidence of this. VPS said it strictly forbade for drivers to operate trains from a back cab.