The biggest railway accidents: 153 people died as a result of the derailment of an international express train

photo: Wikimedia/The biggest railway accidents: 153 people died as a result of the derailment of an international express train

The tragic August 30, 1974, entered the history of railway disasters in a country that no longer exists today. In the evening, an accident occurred on the eastern railway branch of the Zagreb railway station, which claimed 153 lives. The Express, named Direkr Orijenta and nine wagons heading from Athens to Dortmund, Germany, never saw its destination again.

The international express train on the Athens-Belgrade-Zagreb-Dortmund link with the number 10410 derailed at the central railway station in Zagreb after whistling the prescribed forty kilometers per hour at a speed of 104 kilometers per hour. Speeding became fatal in the arc in front of the platform. While the locomotive itself with both drivers survived unscathed, all nine wagons flew off the tracks. The wagons, which carried about 400 passengers, were subsequently overturned. The number of victims varies. Some sources state 153. Others counted at least 167. A total of 41 victims could not get identified. Among the passengers were mainly Yugoslav citizens working in Germany returning from vacation in their home country. The impact and derailment also caused several traction lines to get pulled down.

The locomotive reached the station spontaneously. Investigators who determined the cause of the accident ruled out a technical defect. The driver and his assistant got blamed for the accident. Whether their mistake was affected by alcohol or fatigue is not clear. Probably both were just overworked. The driver and his assistant worked over 300 hours a month before the accident. Both responsible employees got brought before the court. The driver got a fifteen-year prison sentence while his assistant got an eight-year sentence. The surviving passengers confirmed that the train did not slow down even in the previous stops, and during the journey, it tilted in corners due to speeding.

Those interested can see the locomotive of the derailed train in the Croatian Railway Museum. The accident is one of the most notable accidents, of its kind, in Croatia's and the former Yugoslavia's history.