Qualla: Lathen train collision

Lathen train collision: Introduction

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of 22 September 2006, two men in a diesel maintenance vehicle were finishing their round on the elevated guideway north of Lathen. Every morning they drove the length of the Emsland test track clearing off the leaves and grit that a night in this flat, wet corner of Lower Saxony leaves behind. When the work was done, they radioed for clearance to come off the line. Nothing came back. What they had no way of knowing was that the day's demonstration run had been brought forward by half an hour, that the control room had already energised the track, and that the Transrapid 08 - a train with no wheels, riding on a magnetic field, with a full load of guests aboard - was accelerating toward them.

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Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lathen train collision: The Line That Went Nowhere

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stahlkocher, CC BY-SA 3.0. West Germany built the Emsland test facility to prove a technology that felt, for three decades, permanently just about to arrive. Maglev trains float on magnetic fields and touch nothing; the Transrapid was Germany's entry, developed jointly by Siemens and ThyssenKrupp. The trac...

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Image: Stahlkocher | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lathen train collision: Nine Fifty-Three

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sui-setz, Public domain. The maintenance vehicle weighed sixty tonnes and ran on rubber tyres along the top of the concrete beam. The Transrapid left the station at 09:43. At 09:52 the line dispatchers energised the track. At 09:53 the train began to move. At 09:53:57 emergency braking was applied - and ...

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Image: Sui-setz | Public domain

Lathen train collision: Four Metres Above the Fields

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stahlkocher, CC BY-SA 3.0. The guideway runs about four metres above the surrounding farmland, which made the rescue a problem of height before it was anything else. Firefighters arrived with turntable ladders and aerial platforms and worked from the tops of them. Three people were found only because some...

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Image: Stahlkocher | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lathen train collision: Who Was on Board

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stahlkocher, CC BY-SA 3.0. The people who died were not commuters on a journey. They were there because somebody had thought they should see this. Among them were staff from the Transrapid programme itself, workers from a local nursing care company, employees of the utility RWE, and visitors from firms ass...

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Image: Stahlkocher | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lathen train collision: The Verdict and the Stone

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stahlkocher, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nothing was wrong with the magnets. The maintenance vehicle should have been confirmed clear of the line before the run was released, and it was not. "This accident would not have been possible if all regulations were adhered to," said Rudolf Schwarz of IABG, the company operatin...

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Image: Stahlkocher | CC BY-SA 3.0