FRANKFURT A futuristic high- speed train struck a service vehicle during a test run Friday in northwestern Germany, killing 25 people and dealing a setback to magnetic levitation technology, which aims to narrow the speed gap between trains and planes.

The train slammed into the vehicle at a speed of 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, per hour, scattering wreckage, including seats and clothing, alongside the elevated concrete track, according to the authorities in Lathen, a small town near the Dutch border.

Ten people were seriously injured, said a spokeswoman for the local police, Andrea Menke. About 400 rescue workers labored until nightfall to extract bodies from the wreckage. Two maintenance workers were caught in the crash, she said; their condition was unclear.

"It's been very difficult for the rescue workers, because the magnetic train is elevated above the ground, which makes it hard to reach," Menke said.

The victims included visitors and employees of the company that operates the train, known as Transrapid.

It was the first major accident involving a magnetic levitation, or maglev, train. The authorities declined to speculate on the cause, though experts on maglev technology said it appeared to have been caused by a communications breakdown rather than a flaw in the technology.

The service vehicle, which performs routine maintenance each morning, did not leave the track before 9:30 a.m., when the train began its journey on a 32-kilometer circuit that cut through pastures and forests.

Television coverage showed rescue workers and firefighters being hoisted up to the track by cranes to pull out people trapped in the wreckage. Although the train was heavily damaged, it did not derail.

A marvel of German engineering, the Transrapid is a monorail that uses magnetic levitation technology to propel the train to speeds of 450 kilometers per hour. The train cars have no wheels or axles, but hover above the track, and are moved by magnetic force.

That accounts for why this train's shattered cars remained on the elevated track, despite the force of a crash that would almost certainly have thrown a regular train off the rails.

"The magnetic field under the Transrapid is very strong, and keeps the train on the track, even if it is going 400 kilometers per hour," said Hartmut Müller- Gerbes, a spokesman for TUV Rheinland, a testing company that inspects the test track in Lathen.

Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, maglev technology was supposed to power the next generation of high- speed trains in Germany. But fears about its expense led the German government to choose more conventional trains, and Transrapid is now primarily an export technology.

The only commercial use of the train is in China, where passengers can make the 32-kilometer trip from the financial district in central Shanghai to the airport in Pudong in less than eight minutes. In August, a train filled with smoke because of an overheated battery; there were no injuries.

German leaders have promoted the train as an emblem of the country's healthy trade relationship with China. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, have joined Chinese officials for well-publicized rides on the Shanghai train during visits to China.

Transrapid is a joint venture of the German conglomerate Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, the steel maker. Even before the accident, there were reports that Thyssen was considering pulling out of the venture.

The German government wants to build a maglev train between the airport and the center of the city in Munich. But Bavarian officials said Friday that they would evaluate the plan in light of the crash.

Advocates of these trains argued that the crash, horrifying as it was, should not undermine the technology.

"It's no different than if you land an airplane and there is something parked on the runway," said Kevin Coates, a transportation consultant in Bethesda, Maryland, and former spokesman for Transrapid.

"It's going to take a lot to convince me this technology is not safe," he said.

Source:- Google News

I saw this on the news , how sad. It is incredulous some sort of safety measure did not prevent this occurring.