By SPIEGEL Staff
Plans to use the Transrapid in a shuttle between Munich airport and the city center are on hold pending a detailed investigation into what caused Friday's accident in which the train hurtled into a maintenance vehicle at 120 miles per hour on a test track in the Emsland region near the Dutch border. Twenty-three people were killed and 10 survived, some of them seriously injured.
German engineers have been refining the technology since the 1970s and the test track has been in operation since 1983, frequently offering tours to visitor groups like the one that was travelling in it last Friday. The elevated monorail train is propelled at speeds of up to 450 km/h (270 mph) by a frictionless electromagnetic system. It was developed by Transrapid International, a joint venture between Siemens and ThyssenKrupp.
The Transrapid has so far failed to find buyers in Germany. Despite numerous proposals for its use across the world, the only train of its kind in commercial use is a shuttle from the centre of Shanghai, in China, to the city's airport.
The German government and the state of Bavaria have been arguing about how to finance a proposed 23-mile, €1.6-1.8 billion Munich shuttle and a decision had been expected in the fall. But German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, speaking after talks with the consortium at the weekend, declined to confirm that the timetable still stood. "Security issues are the total priority for me," he said.
An independent enquiry into the crash could take six to eight weeks. Investigators are focusing on human error as the likely cause for the accident with special attention being paid to the test track's control center. The presence of the maintenance vehicle on the track was clearly noted in at least two locations. Investigators will also look into why the train drivers applied the emergency brake so late, even though the maintenance car could easily be seen. Investigators are planning to question two controllers on duty when the crash happened, as well as one of the train drivers and two workers on the maintenance car who survived the crash.
Bavarian Transport Minister Erwin Huber said the proposed Munich shuttle would use a more up-to-date security system that electronically checks the track and that the addition safety systems may boost the price tag for the project. However, at present only the biggest of optimists actually expect the Transrapid to get the go-ahead in Munich.
The Emsland tragedy is a disaster for the project. The Transrapid for years symbolized Germany's engineering prowess. It will be tough to find government and commercial backers if the technology is regarded as potentially dangerous.
ThyssenKrupp executive Olaf Berlien said Germany must decide in the next 18 months whether it will use the Transrapid technology or not. If the Munich shuttle doesn't get the green light in that time, the consortium may sell its patents to China.
"Safest transport system on earth"
The consortium's Web site praises the system as “the safest transport system available on earth.” It says the Transrapid is 20 times safer than airplanes, 250 times safer than conventional railroad and 700 times safer than road traffic.
But the Emsland accident has thrown up questions about how safe the Transrapid is from terrorist sabotage and whether rescue services are equipped to recover victims from the track four to five meters above the ground.
Professor Helmut Holzapfel, a German transport expert who was part of a study group reviewing the Transrapid’s safety, said the system was basically safe but that there were risks. "The problem is the high speed. If the train collides with an object at 500 km/h it’s like a cannon ball,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
He added that scientists had discussed how safe the system was against terrorist attacks. "The train travels at high speed on an elevated track. Whoever manages to put an obstacle in its way up there can cause a tragedy.” He added that was a danger that applied to many transport systems.
The Transrapid has a dangerous weakness -- it travels automatically without a driver and lacks a system to stop the train if there are is an obstacle ahead. The collision may have been avoided if the test track had been better equipped. For example, the staff in the maintenance vehicle weren't able to monitor radio communication between the Transrapid and the control center. If they had been, they would have heard the train getting permission to start and may have been able to avert the crash.
The only Transrapid in commercial operation is in Shanghai.
The consortium that developed the technology, which was joined by Siemens, dreamt of billions of euros in contracts and of a victory march of German technology around the world. But the West German government and the state-owned German railway saw investing in the project as too risky and too expensive. They concentrated on developing conventional high-speed trains.
By the time the Transrapid had finally reached technical fruition in the late 1980s and was being admired by visitors and engineers at the Emsland track, other trains had conquered Europe's rail networks.
The lack of commercial use in Germany has lessened its export chances. In the wake of unification there was a plan to build a Transrapid link between Berlin and the northern city of Hamburg, a distance of 180 miles. But the project was abandoned after eight years of debate.
The only buyers have been the Chinese, possibly motivated by a desire to copy the difficult technology and develop their own train, albeit with a driver and a reliable anti-crash system.
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