Getå Railroad Disaster
Encyclopedia
The Getå Railroad Disaster was a train
disaster caused by a landslide
in Getå
, a town that is now part of the municipality of Norrköping
on 1 October 1918. To date, it is the worst rail accident in Swedish history
.
The derailment occurred when the layers of colloidal clay and gravel in the embankment
that had been cut
into the hill gave way. Shortly afterwards, a mixed train consisting of a locomotive and ten cars came down the tracks, falling down the embankment and landing on the road below. Of the passengers and crew on board that night, 41 people were injured and at least 42 were killed or died later from injuries sustained in the crash. It is unclear how many died in the derailment compared to those who died in the blaze that followed it. Many of the passengers were burned alive as the unreinforced wooden cars caught fire, killing those who had survived the crash itself but were still trapped in the wreckage.
and Nyköping
had been opened exactly five years before, on 1 October 1913. In conjunction with the construction of the stretch between Åby and Krokek
, geological surveys had been carried out since an existing geological fault in the area posed a risk of the ground collapsing from underneath it down towards the shore of Bråviken
Bay. The spring of 1918 had been dry, causing the mean water level of Bråviken to have dropped and the ground to have dried out, which in turn caused the ground to crack. September was, on the other hand, unusually rainy, enough so that the ground was saturated. The embankment was built on top of layers of clay, whose bearing capacity
had been diminished due to the rains as the ground grew heavier. On 1 October 1918, the ground started to collapse when a layer of surge gravel started to slip against a layer of clay. The railway embankment collapsed, taking the road below with it. This caused the underlying layers to be pushed up, raising up the floor of the bay and causing a small peninsula to be formed.
at 6:26 p.m. without any problems. The first sign of trouble came when the station guard on duty at Getå Halt heard the telephone wires vibrating between 6:33 and 6:40. At around 6:50 p.m., a milk cart went by the site; no collapse was noticed. Between 6:52 and 6:55 the clay stratum under the embankment gave way and collapsed. At approximately 6:55, the telegraph network that ran along the railway line came down.
Train 422 had left Malmö
at 7:00 a.m heading for Stockholm. In Mjölby
, its original locomotive, F 1271, was replaced by F 1200. The train arrived in Norrköping twelve minutes late.
In Sweden, the next station down the line was always contacted by telegraph using the signal "tåg ut"
once a train had left the previous station. Although Train 422 was supposed to have left Åby at 6:44 p.m., it did not leave until 6:54, since it had been late in arriving. Shortly after this, the station in Krokek tried to contact Åby to see why it had not received any "tåg ut" from it, but it could not reach Åby Station. At 6:57 Åby Station tried to contact Krokek Station to say that the train had left, but it was as unsuccessful in reaching Krokek Station as Krokek had been in reaching it.
The train's speed at the time of derailment was an estimated 65–70 km/h. The F 1200 locomotive was the first to derail, sliding down the embankment until it came to rest on its right side on the road below. The cars between the locomotive and the dining car were completely destroyed while the dining car partially slid down the embankment towards the road, ending up at a 45° angle on the slope between the embankment and the road. The last two cars remained standing on the tracks.
Wahlström, the engineer
, hit his head when the train derailed. In spite of the concussion he had sustained, he managed to drag himself out of the locomotive to safety. The train's conductor, Mr. Ström, was in the last passenger car at the time of the accident. He disembarked and headed towards the locomotive. When he got nearby, he found Wahlström, who informed him that the stoker, Carlsson, was buried under the coal.
Ström headed off towards Åby to inform them of the accident and met Mr. Andersson, a track walker
. From a nearby house, Andersson called Åby and notified them of the accident. Track walker Eriksson arrived from his house east of the accident site. His wife had lowered the boom barrier
at the railway crossing and was standing and waiting for the train when she thought it sounded as if the train had stopped, so Eriksson quickly went to the site of the derailment. Once he saw that the telegraph poles were aslant, he knew that something serious had occurred. Upon seeing that the train had derailed, he hurried to Getå Halt to notify Krokek Station what had occurred.
Meanwhile, embers from the locomotive's boiler had started to ignite the dry wood in the shattered cars closest to the locomotive. Although many of the people in the cars managed to get out, others perished as the fire spread. Of the approximately 170 people on board, 42 perished. In addition, five people were reported missing. The line was closed to traffic because of the derailment from 1 October 1918, until 21 December 1918.
launched an inquiry into the cause of the accident by interviewing the surviving employees who had been working on the train. A number of passengers also came forward to be interviewed for the inquiry upon seeing the advertisement the board had placed in the newspapers. One of the key aims of the inquiry was to establish whether or not acetylene gas
, which had been used in lighting, had caused the fire. The inquiry came to the conclusion, however, that burning coal had been responsible for setting the splintered wood of the train cars on fire.
In addition, the Geotechnical Commission of the Swedish State Railways launched an investigation into the cause of the accident, albeit from a geological perspective. The embankment had been built on top of several layers of clay and gravel deposited there during the Ice Age. The commission drilled holes to the bedrock in a number of places. These revealed the remains of a prehistoric landslide under the place where the train derailed. This prehistoric landslide had increased the flow of water in that spot, which had, in turn, contributed to the landslide that had caused the accident. These exceptional circumstances might have caused the engineers building the line to believe that the bearing capacity of the soil
was greater than it actually was. In 1923, another landslide occurred in the same place, this time causing the road running along Bråvik Bay to collapse.
Geotechnically, the accident was investigated by performing both test drilling and strength calculations on site. The investigation into the cause of the accident had a major impact on the development of the field of geotechnics in Sweden. The scene of the accident was cleared in autumn 1918 so that the train line could be reopened by December. This was made possible by shifting the track one metre towards the side of the mountain and by reinforcing the embankment with rocks. At the site of the accident, the speed limit was lowered to 15 km/h, with the speed limit on either side of that stretch of track being 30 km/h. In modern times, the speed limit has been set at a flat 100 km/h.
consisted of the locomotive and 10 cars:
The majority of those who perished were in cars 2039 and 1235. These had smashed into each other as the train derailed.
until 1937 when it was sold for 30,876 DKK to the Danish State Railways, which continued to use it for many years to come. On 21 April 1943, it was hit in an air raid near Korsør
, Denmark
. In 1963, the locomotive was returned to Sweden, where it is currently on display at the Swedish Railway Museum
in Gävle
.
and Sandviken. The second is located at Norra kyrkogården, a cemetery in Norrköping
. The mass grave is marked by a 5 m high red granite stone from Graversfors and contains the remains of 15 identified victims as well as those of the unidentified victims.
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
disaster caused by a landslide
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
in Getå
Getå
Getå is a minor locality in Norrköping Municipality, Sweden.-History:On October 1, 1918, Getå was the site of the worst train accident in Swedish railroad history, killing at least 42 people. Many passengers were burned alive as unreinforced wooden cars burned, killing many who had survived the...
, a town that is now part of the municipality of Norrköping
Norrköping Municipality
Norrköping Municipality is a municipality in Östergötland County in southeast Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Norrköping, with some 90,000 inhabitants....
on 1 October 1918. To date, it is the worst rail accident in Swedish history
History of rail transport in Sweden
The history of Sweden's railways has included both state-owned and private railways.-The early years 1845-1914:In 1845 the Swedish count Adolf Eugene von Rosen received permission to build railways in Sweden. He started building a railway between the town of Köping and Hult...
.
The derailment occurred when the layers of colloidal clay and gravel in the embankment
Embankment (transportation)
To keep a road or railway line straight or flat, and where the comparative cost or practicality of alternate solutions is prohibitive, the land over which the road or rail line will travel is built up to form an embankment. An embankment is therefore in some sense the opposite of a cutting, and...
that had been cut
Cut and fill
In earthmoving, cut and fill is the process of constructing a railway, road or canal whereby the amount of material from cuts roughly matches the amount of fill needed to make nearby embankments, so minimizing the amount of construction labor...
into the hill gave way. Shortly afterwards, a mixed train consisting of a locomotive and ten cars came down the tracks, falling down the embankment and landing on the road below. Of the passengers and crew on board that night, 41 people were injured and at least 42 were killed or died later from injuries sustained in the crash. It is unclear how many died in the derailment compared to those who died in the blaze that followed it. Many of the passengers were burned alive as the unreinforced wooden cars caught fire, killing those who had survived the crash itself but were still trapped in the wreckage.
Background
The railway line between ÅbyABY
ABY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Archbishop of York, a senior post in the Church of England* Aby, a village in Lincolnshire, England* After the Battle of Yavin, in Star Wars fiction...
and Nyköping
Nyköping
Nyköping is a locality and the seat of Nyköping Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 32,427 inhabitants in 2005. The city is also the capital of Södermanland County.- History :...
had been opened exactly five years before, on 1 October 1913. In conjunction with the construction of the stretch between Åby and Krokek
Krokek
Krokek is a locality situated in Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 4,154 inhabitants in 2005....
, geological surveys had been carried out since an existing geological fault in the area posed a risk of the ground collapsing from underneath it down towards the shore of Bråviken
Bråviken
Bråviken is a bay of the Baltic sea that is located near Norrköping in Östergötland, Sweden....
Bay. The spring of 1918 had been dry, causing the mean water level of Bråviken to have dropped and the ground to have dried out, which in turn caused the ground to crack. September was, on the other hand, unusually rainy, enough so that the ground was saturated. The embankment was built on top of layers of clay, whose bearing capacity
Bearing capacity
In geotechnical engineering, bearing capacity is the capacity of soil to support the loads applied to the ground. The bearing capacity of soil is the maximum average contact pressure between the foundation and the soil which should not produce shear failure in the soil...
had been diminished due to the rains as the ground grew heavier. On 1 October 1918, the ground started to collapse when a layer of surge gravel started to slip against a layer of clay. The railway embankment collapsed, taking the road below with it. This caused the underlying layers to be pushed up, raising up the floor of the bay and causing a small peninsula to be formed.
Events
A train passed through GetåGetå
Getå is a minor locality in Norrköping Municipality, Sweden.-History:On October 1, 1918, Getå was the site of the worst train accident in Swedish railroad history, killing at least 42 people. Many passengers were burned alive as unreinforced wooden cars burned, killing many who had survived the...
at 6:26 p.m. without any problems. The first sign of trouble came when the station guard on duty at Getå Halt heard the telephone wires vibrating between 6:33 and 6:40. At around 6:50 p.m., a milk cart went by the site; no collapse was noticed. Between 6:52 and 6:55 the clay stratum under the embankment gave way and collapsed. At approximately 6:55, the telegraph network that ran along the railway line came down.
Train 422 had left Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
at 7:00 a.m heading for Stockholm. In Mjölby
Mjölby
Mjölby is a city and the seat of Mjölby Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 11,927 inhabitants in 2005.Mjölby is located by the rivulet Svartån. The name "Mjölby" is derived from "Mölloby", which comes from mylna or mölna -- meaning "mill"...
, its original locomotive, F 1271, was replaced by F 1200. The train arrived in Norrköping twelve minutes late.
In Sweden, the next station down the line was always contacted by telegraph using the signal "tåg ut"
Railway signalling
Railway signalling is a system used to control railway traffic safely, essentially to prevent trains from colliding. Being guided by fixed rails, trains are uniquely susceptible to collision; furthermore, trains cannot stop quickly, and frequently operate at speeds that do not enable them to stop...
once a train had left the previous station. Although Train 422 was supposed to have left Åby at 6:44 p.m., it did not leave until 6:54, since it had been late in arriving. Shortly after this, the station in Krokek tried to contact Åby to see why it had not received any "tåg ut" from it, but it could not reach Åby Station. At 6:57 Åby Station tried to contact Krokek Station to say that the train had left, but it was as unsuccessful in reaching Krokek Station as Krokek had been in reaching it.
The train's speed at the time of derailment was an estimated 65–70 km/h. The F 1200 locomotive was the first to derail, sliding down the embankment until it came to rest on its right side on the road below. The cars between the locomotive and the dining car were completely destroyed while the dining car partially slid down the embankment towards the road, ending up at a 45° angle on the slope between the embankment and the road. The last two cars remained standing on the tracks.
Wahlström, the engineer
Railroad engineer
A railroad engineer, locomotive engineer, train operator, train driver or engine driver is a person who drives a train on a railroad...
, hit his head when the train derailed. In spite of the concussion he had sustained, he managed to drag himself out of the locomotive to safety. The train's conductor, Mr. Ström, was in the last passenger car at the time of the accident. He disembarked and headed towards the locomotive. When he got nearby, he found Wahlström, who informed him that the stoker, Carlsson, was buried under the coal.
Ström headed off towards Åby to inform them of the accident and met Mr. Andersson, a track walker
Track checker
A track checker is a small railway carriage used in the United States and Ireland to audit the gauge and integrity of railway tracks. The first track checkers were simply people that walked the tracks, making sure that the tracks were not damaged and that the switches were working. These people...
. From a nearby house, Andersson called Åby and notified them of the accident. Track walker Eriksson arrived from his house east of the accident site. His wife had lowered the boom barrier
Boom barrier
A boom barrier is a bar, or pole pivoted in such a way as to allow the boom to block vehicular access through a controlled point. Typically the tip of a boom gate rises in a vertical arc to a near vertical position. Boom gates are often counterweighted, so the pole is easily tipped...
at the railway crossing and was standing and waiting for the train when she thought it sounded as if the train had stopped, so Eriksson quickly went to the site of the derailment. Once he saw that the telegraph poles were aslant, he knew that something serious had occurred. Upon seeing that the train had derailed, he hurried to Getå Halt to notify Krokek Station what had occurred.
Meanwhile, embers from the locomotive's boiler had started to ignite the dry wood in the shattered cars closest to the locomotive. Although many of the people in the cars managed to get out, others perished as the fire spread. Of the approximately 170 people on board, 42 perished. In addition, five people were reported missing. The line was closed to traffic because of the derailment from 1 October 1918, until 21 December 1918.
Investigation
The day after the accident, the Royal Railroad BoardStatens Järnvägar
The Swedish State Railways or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board , is a former government agency responsible for operating the state railways in Sweden....
launched an inquiry into the cause of the accident by interviewing the surviving employees who had been working on the train. A number of passengers also came forward to be interviewed for the inquiry upon seeing the advertisement the board had placed in the newspapers. One of the key aims of the inquiry was to establish whether or not acetylene gas
Acetylene
Acetylene is the chemical compound with the formula C2H2. It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in pure form and thus is usually handled as a solution.As an alkyne, acetylene is unsaturated because...
, which had been used in lighting, had caused the fire. The inquiry came to the conclusion, however, that burning coal had been responsible for setting the splintered wood of the train cars on fire.
In addition, the Geotechnical Commission of the Swedish State Railways launched an investigation into the cause of the accident, albeit from a geological perspective. The embankment had been built on top of several layers of clay and gravel deposited there during the Ice Age. The commission drilled holes to the bedrock in a number of places. These revealed the remains of a prehistoric landslide under the place where the train derailed. This prehistoric landslide had increased the flow of water in that spot, which had, in turn, contributed to the landslide that had caused the accident. These exceptional circumstances might have caused the engineers building the line to believe that the bearing capacity of the soil
Bearing capacity
In geotechnical engineering, bearing capacity is the capacity of soil to support the loads applied to the ground. The bearing capacity of soil is the maximum average contact pressure between the foundation and the soil which should not produce shear failure in the soil...
was greater than it actually was. In 1923, another landslide occurred in the same place, this time causing the road running along Bråvik Bay to collapse.
Geotechnically, the accident was investigated by performing both test drilling and strength calculations on site. The investigation into the cause of the accident had a major impact on the development of the field of geotechnics in Sweden. The scene of the accident was cleared in autumn 1918 so that the train line could be reopened by December. This was made possible by shifting the track one metre towards the side of the mountain and by reinforcing the embankment with rocks. At the site of the accident, the speed limit was lowered to 15 km/h, with the speed limit on either side of that stretch of track being 30 km/h. In modern times, the speed limit has been set at a flat 100 km/h.
The train
The derailed trainTrain
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
consisted of the locomotive and 10 cars:
- The steam locomotiveSteam locomotiveA steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
F 1200SJ F (steam locomotive)The F was a type of Swedish steam locomotive based on the Württemberg C and built by Nydquist & Holm between 1914 and 1916. It was primarily used on the main lines between Stockholm-Gothenburg and Stockholm-Malmö...
(currently on display at the Swedish Railway MuseumSwedish Railway MuseumThe Swedish Railway Museum, , in Gävle, Gästrikland, Sweden, national museum for Sweden's railway history.The Swedish Railway Museum is tasked with acquiring, preserving and supplying knowledge about Swedish railway history on the basis of the national collection...
in GävleGävleGävle is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 71,033 inhabitants in 12/31 2010. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland , having received its charter in 1446 from Christopher of Bavaria.-History:It is believed that the name Gävle...
). - RPORailway post officeIn the United States a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks, and was off-limits to...
DFo 1107 (destroyed) - Freight car F1 25591 (destroyed)
- Passenger car C3d 2050 (destroyed)
- Passenger car Co5 2039 (destroyed)
- Passenger car Co1 1235 (destroyed)
- Passenger car Co5 2044 (destroyed)
- Dining carDining carA dining car or restaurant carriage , also diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant....
ABo3 2466 (repaired after the accident, scrapped in 1960) - Sleeping carSleeping carThe sleeping car or sleeper is a railway/railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s and could be configured...
Bo1 1015 (undamaged, scrapped in 1949) - Passenger car BCo 1429 (undamaged, scrapped in 1963)
- Extra freight car G3 19003 (undamaged, scrapped in 1952)
The majority of those who perished were in cars 2039 and 1235. These had smashed into each other as the train derailed.
The locomotive
The locomotive remained on site until 15 November. Once it had been overhauled, it was test driven on 21 May 1919, and remained in service with the Swedish State RailwaysStatens Järnvägar
The Swedish State Railways or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board , is a former government agency responsible for operating the state railways in Sweden....
until 1937 when it was sold for 30,876 DKK to the Danish State Railways, which continued to use it for many years to come. On 21 April 1943, it was hit in an air raid near Korsør
Korsør municipality
Until January 1, 2007 Korsør municipality was a municipality in West Zealand County on the west coast of the island of Zealand in Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 75 km², and had a total population of 20.644 . Its last mayor was Henning Erichsen, a member of the Social Democrats ...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. In 1963, the locomotive was returned to Sweden, where it is currently on display at the Swedish Railway Museum
Swedish Railway Museum
The Swedish Railway Museum, , in Gävle, Gästrikland, Sweden, national museum for Sweden's railway history.The Swedish Railway Museum is tasked with acquiring, preserving and supplying knowledge about Swedish railway history on the basis of the national collection...
in Gävle
Gävle
Gävle is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 71,033 inhabitants in 12/31 2010. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland , having received its charter in 1446 from Christopher of Bavaria.-History:It is believed that the name Gävle...
.
Monuments
There are two monuments to those who perished in the derailment and the subsequent fire that engulfed the cars. The first is at the site of the accident along the old road between ÅbyABY
ABY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* Archbishop of York, a senior post in the Church of England* Aby, a village in Lincolnshire, England* After the Battle of Yavin, in Star Wars fiction...
and Sandviken. The second is located at Norra kyrkogården, a cemetery in Norrköping
Norrköping
Norrköping is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County. The city has a population of 87,247 inhabitants in 2010, out of a municipal total of 130,050, making it Sweden's tenth largest city and eighth largest...
. The mass grave is marked by a 5 m high red granite stone from Graversfors and contains the remains of 15 identified victims as well as those of the unidentified victims.