European Railroad Discussion > German High Speed ICE Train Catches Fire

A German high speed ICE train running from Cologne to Munich caught fire early Friday morning between Cologne and Frankfurt.  The 500+ passengers aboard exited the train out in the country side without incident. 
There are some fantastic photos of the fire and it's aftermath on the internet.  It was one of their newer ICE train sets.....one car completely burned up, another was half burned up, and another was scorched on the outside.  A railway spokesperson said that a technical fault caused the fire on board.  The rail line will remain closed for several days for investigation, damaged equipment removal, and track and catanary repairs. Trains are being detoured on the Rhine River lines through the gorge.  This is a high traffic route by itself, so it should be seeing some super railfanning opportunities for four to six days.  I was there this past April and posted some commentary and photos of my experience here on TRAINORDERS.  

Nice long thread with a local perspective at The Turntable (Drehscheibe) - 

ICE train on fire -
https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?002,8706438

High Speed Koln-Frankfurt route closed until the end of next week -
https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?002,8708467

The Turntable is basically the German version of Trainorders. I would suggest Google Chrome which has an auto-translate feature if you don't speak German.

My friend and I boarded ICE 121 (Amsterdam to Frankfurt) at Cologne at 9.28 am on Friday bound for Frankfurt Airport and our flight home to Australia. The DB phone app and on board announcements were only saying the delay and diversion was due to the fire department operating near the tracks so we thought it must have been a fire near the tracks and the line was closed as a precaution. Turns out it was a bit more serious than they were letting on. We were routed down the east bank of the Rhine as far as Koblenz were we crossed over to the west bank, there was a lot of slow running as they obviously were trying to fit us into other traffic but it was a more interesting trip for us as railfans than a quick run down the high speed line. We ended up about 90 minutes late arriving at Frankfurt Airport and the train was terminated there and did a quick turn around to form another service with passengers on the platform waiting to board. We made our plane with 45 minutes to spare.

Lucky !!! :)

I googled the fire on the ICE train and found these two photos posted.
The first shows the fire on the high speed ICE train.
The second shows the results of the fire after it was extinguished.
This was a sad day for DB. Fortunately there were few injuries.
They say they diverted traffic over the the Rhine routes. One gentleman said they first went down the east side of the river and then crossed over to the west side.
When I was in Germany in 2002 went traveled up the west side from Frankfurt north and then into Berlin. I took photos across the Rhine along the way.
 

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

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Imagine the ability to divert that much traffic onto an alternate route.  Try putting the Cap. Corridor over Altamont Pass, for example.

Amtrak would bustitute.  Would UP allow it?

The interior of those cars must be made of some very combustble material.

Gerry
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Waybiller Wrote:
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Imagine the ability to divert that much traffic onto an alternate route.  Try putting the Cap. Corridor over Altamont Pass, for example.

Red Hot Smokin' Awesome ICE Train.

TAW

lynnpowell Wrote:
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> There are some fantastic photos of the fire and
> it's aftermath on the internet.  It was one of
> their newer ICE train sets.

No, it is not one of the new (Class 412) sets. I was in Germany earlier this month and photographed those. They have rectangular windows in the doors.

The cars in the photos posted here have oval windows in the doors, which suggests the train is a Class 403 (built 1998 to 2005) or Class 406 (built 1998-2001).

Edited to update:  I've now looked at the German railfan website linked above and the precise trainset and car have been identified. The set is number 326 of Class 403 and the completely burned car is 403 626.  The 600 number means it is a transformer car equipped with a pantograph (there are two of these cars per set, each one marshalled behind one of the driving cars at the outer ends of the eight-car set). These Class 403s can operate as single sets or in multiples of two.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/18 12:19 by railsmith.