A German court fined two managers of the Transrapid high-speed train test track Friday for failing to implement safety measures which led to the deadly train crash in 2006.
The Transrapid magnetic levitation train collided at a speed of170 kilometers per hour with a parked maintenance vehicle on the test track near the western German town of Lathen on Sept. 22, 2006, killing 23 people and injured 10.
A court in Osnabrueck fined Joerg Metzner, managing director of the test track at the time of the fatal accident, and his predecessor, Guenter Steinmetz, 20,000 euros (about 31,500 U.S. dollars) and 24,000 euros respectively. They were accused of failing to ensure the implement of safety measures at the test track which should have prevented the disaster.
A supervising engineer, who gave the all-clear for the Transrapid train to start though the 60-ton maintenance vehicle was still on the track, was not fit to stand trial because he had become suicidal after the accident.
The train driver, who was killed in the accident, was also believed to be partly responsible for crash as he had apparently failed to look out of the window to detect the obstacle in time.
The Transrapid train, which can run as fast as 450 km an hour, was developed by a joint venture between German industrial firms Siemens AG and Thyssen Krupp. The only operating Transrapid line now is in Shanghai, China.
Source: Xinhua
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