The Steam Explosion the Soviets Tried to Hide 🚂 The 1977 Explosion of 1516 🚂 History in the Dark
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- In 1977, an express train was being pulled by DRG Class 01 1516 when disaster struck. The East German government, under the watch of the Soviet Union, attempted to quash any knowledge of the accident. This is the story.
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I think Germany gets overlooked to much when it comes to trains. I'm a German Railroader and the history of Germany when it comes to railroading is immense! We innovatived and revolutionized so much especially in terms of technology for steam and electric locomotives.
Anglo centrism? I don't recall hearing many people talk about french or Chinese trains when china is one of the few nations in the world that still operate trains in a commercial environment.
@@jmd1743 I'm guessing you mean steam trains 🚂
@@fanofeverything30465 yes. Old steam trains.
It would be great to see more videos about German railways. Essentially it's just down to someone being willing to make and post these videos.
@SteamCheese1
Nicht zu vergessen, daß die DRG das größte Verkehrsunternehmen der Welt war.
A fusible plug on a standard gauge locomotive is unlikely to douse the fire in time to prevent firebox crown collapse and an explosion. It's more of a warning device to alert the crew to take immediate action to save the boiler, rake out the fire if possible and operate all injectors/feed pumps available.
If the fusible plug lets loose, then the boiler is already overheated due to low water; adding cold water into the boiler would certainly cause an explosion.
The only thing that can be done at that point is to let the boiler cool down, and give it a thorough inspection. If possible, they can open the blowdowns to help relieve steam pressure (and help with cooling the boiler down, but that might be impractical depending on the locomotive's location.
@@moosecat Not so, I'm a steam driver at a preserved railway in the UK and what I've described is the prescribed procedure if the fusible plug drops. Injectors on, rake out as much fire as possible. That's the way you save the boiler. I was in attendance at an event at another railway where a fusible plug dropped on one of the locos, the crew followed the procedure described above, and the boiler was, thankfully, saved from any serious damage.
@@RiflemanMoore I stand corrected. I run 1/8 scale live steam, so I was surprised to see that you'd actually add water to the boiler. I would have thought it would have caused thermal shock.
@@moosecat Even if thermal shock occurred, it would still be better to damage a boiler than let it outright explode.
@@Dat-Mudkip Better to damage the boiler than to have an explosion, but keep in mind, when a boiler explodes, it's due to water instantly flashing to steam, causing a pressure spike.
Can you do the top five weirdest looking locomotives
Oh yeah, 5 weirdest looking SUCCESSFUL engines! That would be fun.
@@robertwilloughby8050 yes, that's good, 'cause there have definitely been at least 5 completely stupid looking locomotives in the unsuccessful series.
Hammerhead Chicago and North Western RSD-5s
Hey Darkness, Train Nerd from Germany here!
I LOVE YOUR CONTENT and I watched every Video so far. And now I am a Channel Member! I am happy that I can help an up and coming Channel with such good Content!
ps: Your German Pronounciatons are pretty good.
Welcome aboard! Thank you so much!
1) The _Einheitsprogramm_ datesback to the 20s, not the 30s.
2)Yes, it's also referred to as a Pacific in Germany.
3)01 118 shown isn't in running condition anymore, and as far as I'm aware isn't accessible to the public either.
4)The crew's superiors wheren't Soviets, they where Germans. Saying the Soviets had control over *everything* in the GDR is a bit over the top.
Correct the DDR whas no Part of the Soviet Union it Whas its own entity in the Communist Block at that Times and so in the DDR the Soviets where only called ,,Friends" but hat nothing to Do with Things like laws or Things that the goverment of the DDR will do.
So this Fact is incorrect that the Soviets where the People how Things will work and that the had the last word in the DDR or East Germany and how they would handle Things.
@@motorsportfan86 It's a bit more complicated. But yeah in general the GDR was very independent. Just when it came to heavy Industry, Intelligence, Production of certain Goods and some Military stuff the Soviets in Moscow had some influence. It's kinda weird to explain.
What I'm trying to say is that I agree with both of you, it's just a little more complicated if you go into detail.
6:12 "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth".
The accident wasn't "hidden" (it was briefly in the news, not for long though, but everyone knew about the Kesselzerknall Bitterfeld and what happened, just the final investigation results remained off-limits to the public until after the fall of the wall) and Soviets really played no part in it (nor did they run anything in the country, they tended to stay exclusively in their military bases). Repercussions for running late would have been a fine or at the very least a "talk" with the superiors for the crew, but nothing too drastic. The crew was obliged to do an optical check of the supplies in the tender with the replacement engine in Berlin but neglected to do so. The driver was also inexperienced and the stoker disliked the driver so much that he heated come hell or high water (or run out of water), probably hoping for a second fusible plug incident to rub it in. The driver apparently planned to get water at Bitterfeld (the reason they refused water at Wittenberg). Also, the engine was one of the rebuilt batches of the post war era (or in other words, those particular "Reko" Pacifics were practically "new"). Reason for the comparably long use of steam traction (right up to 88) in the GDR was the oil crisis, although it became much harder in the 80s to still spot steamers in regular service (other than on the narrow gauge lines), they had a very ambitious electrification program going on.
Weder der Lokführer noch der Heizer hatten eine Einweisung auf der 01 5.
@@carlnapp4412 , Da muss ich Ihnen Glauben schenken, dieses Detail war/ist mir nicht bekannt gewesen.
You know the communist Governments get orders from Moscow, including how to run their own country?
So yeah the Soviets were in charge
i am from bitterfeld-wolfen. my grandpa was in the small village of greppin, a few miles away from the place. he sayed that the explosion was very very loud, but thats the only thing he could remember, but more about the other disasters that happened in bitterfeld, mostly the explosions that occured in the chemical plants
For anyone wondering why water flowing back on the hot crown sheet is a problem: the water was "flash boiled". When water boils and turns to steam, the water instantaneously expands to 1700 times its volume as water. One cubic foot of water becomes 1700 cubic feet of steam.
I know I've already suggested this a few times but if you want to do another video about trains going into water there is the wreck of ol 3666
3666, no wonder it crashed...
Communism go boom
Oh wow 2 videos in a single day. Great news, I love your vids! Keep up with the quality work!
p.s.- be careful not to overwork yourself, you've been posting a lot of videos real fast lately, and remember it's fine to delay a video if it needs to. Oh and uh, also don't start posting stuff you're not happy with, always use the simple principle of quality over quantity.
Well said
The East-German "Rekoloks" are great. I really like their appearance, for example the east-German Class 41 or the Class 23 (later renamed Class 35).
thank you for doing my suggestion!
The standardizing began in the early twenties. The first "Einheitslokomotiven" were built in '25, Class 01 express locos.
This would have been a really good video if it was more accurate in terms of the engineering. The lack of proper technical knowledge and subsequent explanation spoils it. It is also a missed oportunity to mention why a steam explosion is so much more powerful than the equivalent size of compressed air. Something most people don't understand. Still an interesting story.
CaCO3 removal is an activity that takes up significant labour, time, and descaling solutions at water treatment plants and any plant that uses water or steam really. Boiler water testing was done regularly and often in the RCN, and is to this day. Water wells plug up with CaCO3 deposits. The solution is to hydro frac the area adjacent to the old filter pack, & often dump in Hydrochloric acid solution, let it work, telescope a new filter pac in, then develop the well to try and get it producing again.
They do actually call them “Pacifics” over in Germany. Pacific is the standard name for 4-6-2 locomotives, and I have yet to hear of any 4-6-2s that aren’t called Pacifics.
I've been waiting for this one for while
Never heard about this accident. Learned now, which is good. Better late than never.
Good post I like it 👍very much, but there was another train accident in the GDR.A steam-hauled passenger train was resting in a tank truck and burned down🚂🚚 completely.Would also be a story to tell.
Finally steam engine explosions. This is freaking cool
6:49 ...Wow
Great job you are learning about steam locomotives that’s a good thing 😃☺️
just a tip, do some better research. you compleetly messud up the classes, the "DRG 03" is a reko DR baureihe 03 and the "01" is a reko DR baureihe 01.5
yes i know this is nitpicky but still :)
This story makes ZERO sense.... The fusible plugs in the crownsheet would have failed WAY earlier if insulated in limescale that bad.... the water cools the plugs and prevents the lead/ white metal from melting.. no contact with water... insulated with limescale.... they fail. as in melt and blow into the firebox. Not only that... but you stated the fusible plugs put the fire out. That is completely false. They make a hell of a noise, but if they failed due to low water, they literally have no water to spray. its steam. and it doesnt put the fire out. its an audible indicator to the crew to dump the fire throw the injectors on if safe to do so and bail. I know this because its my job. i work on them every day
A very nice Video
Can you talk about the BRD 53 or Germany big boy
We never even called it that xD
@@schudder1623 Kriegslok, if I remember correctly.
@@moosecat the class 52 is the famous war engine, the 53 ist a duplex engine with a Capacitor tender
@@schudder1623 Thank you for the clarification.
@@moosecat you're welcome
3:00 is it me, or are all the drivers blind on that engine??
Good afternoon to all from SE Louisiana 26 Feb 22..
in germany they called them Baureihe 03
You know darkness there’s another major transportation that has a long history of restrictive hours for work. That has lead to a lot of deaths more than the trains have caused like thousands of the deaths of thousands of innocents including children airal transportation our airplane industry. You did not have a train with 550 to 570 something passengers on it that crashed into a mountain in japan which killed all on board except 4 people one being a child. You did have that happen with a single air plane. Yi want worse dual plan crash look up Carnary island year 1977 I think,
I think the reason this happened, is that in the GDR workers were organized into so called breigaes, wich got a production quota attached to them, and if the brigade didn'nt meet the quota, they would only receive half the pay. And because you needed that moey to live, there was quite some pressure to cut corners on let'ts say safety or maintenance.
I really do like your videos, but you need to either get a better microphone or learn to narrate without peaking it every time you emphasize a point.
I mean sure, but shit is expensive in this world and I'm 95% sure that RUclips isn't his full-time job and instead more of a hobby. Also I've gotten used to it after two or three videos.
@@QuebecGamer20 true, or he could just speak in a more consistent volume. The points that he tries to emphasize are hard to listen to because the mic peaks due to the high volume
@@nothanksguy well I really hopes for the better mic solution because its so munch more fun to have different volumes instead of it being always the same level. It's more dynamic and interesting. someone always speaking at the same tone is kind of boring in general.
Is steam locomotives in non-stop active use to this day as of 2022?
Some are, but non stop in this case means that they can be in overhaul for months at a time
Yep get in a hurry and get Hert.
Your explanation as to why a boiler explodes is incorrect.
I've seen an 4-8-4
Boom!
Bit of an understatement to suggest that the fusible plug is a useful bit of kit.
please stop calling them 'melting plugs' . they are called fusible plugs
Soviets?
clickbaiting as the locomotive was operated by the east German railways although Soviet aligned would have managed their own railway affairs, a conflating provocative title ..
There was no radio on the engines, this whole video is a bunch of crap, do your research first. Nobody got punished for being late with a train, the superiors were German, not Russian......
Please get rid of the guitar and try to talk normally. This video is hard to listen to.
tales from the communist workers paradise....
Please... stop screaming!
He isn't
3rd
Before all the angry germans come to vent their anger about having the numbering wrong... The correct written form is '01 516' with the zero prefix intact and a space between the class indication and the locomotive number.
not all 01's are a 01, these did exist in multiple sub classes.
The machine involved was a 01.5 (the number after the dot indicating the first position of the second number block), which means a 2 cylinder 01 with a boiler refit and semi-streamlined outer shell. This type was a East German only affair.
To make matters even more complicated: a 3 position number in the second position is a 2 cylinder machine (for both the 01 and the 03), while a 4 position number is a 3 cylinder (series 03.10 and 01.10). Having a 'Reko' or a 'Neubau' boiler is usually not indicated by a number change, but that also results in having different power classifications
The correct loco number at the time of the explosion was 01 1516. The Deutsche Rheichsbahn had some of the 01.5 converted into oil firering. These were numered 01 05xx. The loco‘s who were not converted were numbered 01 15xx.
Boiler water chemistry was (and can still be) and often overlooked part of the process. The US learnt very early on about train steam plant lifespan, and were world leaders in the technology. Prior to the Second World War delegations from the UK had visited the US and on return to the UK had implemented water plant technology, and were seeing better running and fuel economy because of it, but the Second World War put an further development on hold.
Post war, boiler water chemistry and plant for water production, was heavily invested in an the benefits soon paid off. The real question been, why had it taken so long to appreciate a relatively simple way to look after steam engines? From your narrative it's obvious the GDR had not even considered it.
A final thought about calcification. In the 1950's the Bold "A" Power Station in Lancashire, UK, had a 50 MW steam turbine (large for the time) overspeed. The governor valves failed to regulate the speed of the steam turbine. The unit controller (unfortunately) decided to open the busbars and disconnect the turbine from the grid. The effect of loosing the magnetic field, which was restraining the turbine, lead to a surge in speed. Eventually the turbine disintegrated.
On analysis in was found that calcification had occurred and stopped the governor valves / springs from operating as they should have. Post the accident, in the , UK, power station boiler water chemistry became a significant part of plant management day-by-day / hour-by-hour.
This doesn't Sound like Meiningen works at all, it's the most reliable engine Workshop in Germany, it's still in service today repairing engines from literally all around the World
Yes, I would agree. It was likely only due to the government's pressure that such a thing was overlooked. I've heard nothing but good things of Meiningen otherwise.
they built a new boiler for a brand new British steam locomotive back in 2008
so because they didn't bother to wash out the lime scale inside the boiler due to the Russians breathing their necks this made the boiler go bang
@@HistoryintheDark I have a candidate for the next best trains ever video, the PRR K4s
@@eliotreader8220 You cannot blame the boiler explosion on any one event; usually, accidents are usually due to a series of events.
The scale on the plug--the last-ditch safety device--was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Ultimately, blame needs to fall squarely on the shoulders of the train crew.
However, the recurring theme is the pressure--probably felt by many people at the railroad--to avoid delays at all costs. (Whether the pressure came from Berlin, or ultimately Moscow, is irrelevant.) Less than ten years after this boiler explosion, the United States suffered a similar loss of life for similar reasons; instead of a steam locomotive, it was the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Thank you for talking about germany but could you also talk about Polish accidents or about some locomotives? And a interesting thing about poland is that they have the last real Steam railway depot in europe that is still in service today
Quite a few of the "Polish" locomotives were German locomotives given to Poland after the War as partial reparations.
2:51 of course, dude: everyone in Europe (including Germany) calls them Pacific. Except that on the continent (contrary to the US and UK), what we count is the number of axles and not of wheels, hence a 4-6-2 is a 231. Trivia: this type of locomotive is so archetypal that a French composer (Arthur Honegger) wrote in the early 1930s a famous musical piece under the title "Pacific 231".
And as a PS (but an important one): you seem to imply that East Germany was in USSR, like a Soviet State. It was in reality officially independent country but of course under the overbearing influence of the Soviets as a "satellite state", member of the Warsaw Pact (with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania).
In Germany, they use the electric and diesel counting, so this locomotive was a 2C1.
Have you ever took a look at the "Kriegslok" locomotives?
Theyre one of the engines that are still in comercial use to this day.
So i think there are 5 locomotives in Moldava
What you can't overstate is the level of terror that drove this engine crew to the things they did. Some actually went to prison for small oversights like the initial incident, and prison in the GDR was very different compared to what we have today. So understandably, they really didn't want to be late.
There was no chance of prison for this, believe me. I was in Berlin, East and West, then.
aye, the gdr wasnt soviet russia and in the late 70s very little was directly controlled by the soviets in the civilian sector. Just a bs claim in the video that their superiors they "lied" to would have been soviets. Also it wasnt investigated by the soviets or hidden from the public by soviets (it was in our news for a few days). There was just GDRs own socialist bureaucracy which ruined infrastructure, cut corners, downplayed everything negative and moved on from tragedy fast in a typical socialist dispassionate manner. Also I doubt the crew actually lied about the water, they more likely just lost more water then expected with their engine in poor conditions and miscalculated horribly in order to meet the demands ... noticing their mistake somewhat halfway and then getting rejected by inflexible bureaucrats.
As someone born in the gdr I can tell you with some certainty that this incident wasnt a result of fear and state terror ... just the result of socialist mismanagment, lack of ressources and large workload put onto far too few units operated by workers who had very little freedom to make decisions for themself at work.
That belongs into Grimm's Fairy Tales. No idea were you got such ideas from. Nobody went to prison for being late. Gross negligence causing harm, yes you might have had a chance, not much different than today. Greetings from a former East German.
For something like this? The only risk of that would be if you were caught lying while giving testimony before a magistrate at the inquest. This happened during the Walkerville Ontario inquest into the fecal coliform deaths from incompetent operation of the town water supply. It was not a good day for that guy giving testimony.
We don't have names for wheel arrangements
…but most German rail fans will know and use some of the American names, in particular “atlantics” and “pacifics”. For instance the different earlier engines of class 18 are sometimes referred to as “Länderbahn-Pacifics”. If you talk to people who are deeper into the field (running steam excursion trains or museums), you sometimes also hear talk about “moguls”, “prairies” and “mikados”, but all the other names are virtually unknown. The names are not official, it is more us trying to get a glimpse of these iconic American engines with huge cow catchers and gigantic spark arrestors racing across the country. 🤠 (The video clips that you use in your intro, to my German eye, represent all the glory of American railroads, you see.)
Its really surprising how much interesting train related stuff happend in east Germany
6:16 lightning mctrain: NO NO NO NO, NO WATER JUST COAL!
later on: **boom**
Anyone have the song name?
Have you ever heard of the steam tractor explosion at the fair grounds on July 29, 2001 in Medina, Ohio? Maybe that could be one for your channel.
Boiler in terrible condition (actually the whole tractor was apparently badly maintained, going by the report - many of the fittings were only hand tight and could be loosened without tools) and the fusible plug did not melt when the crownsheet overheated.
At least it wasn't a Chesapeake and Ohio steam loco,
But nice video
liked video 🚂👍😮
The reported death toll of 9 has to be taken as highly suspect. In most Soviet-era countries it was far from unusual to only record the deaths of important people like those in politics and management. The normal population didn't get a look in, unless the incident was the result of outside, i.e. western, influences, in which case the casualty list would often be greatly inflated. Soviet countries did not have fatal incidents being the official rationale, although they did actually have a lot of them, so totally covering them up or massively minimising them was the standard procedure...
The management in such industries as railways in Communist countries were very often not people who had any experience in the relevant fields, they tended to be people who could keep the senior government happy or who had friends in the right places to get that kind of job. The inevitable result was an awful lot of incidents that were caused by the management, who had no idea what was involved in the work, putting pressure on those who did know to get things done far more quickly than was compatible with safety or get fired, and possibly find themselves and their family in a gulag somewhere...
The explosion in Bitterfeld was not a secret. It was in the West Berlin papers the next day. I recall this very well - I was living in Berlin then. I could add a newspaper article here.
A locomotive topic could be covering steam turbine locos. These tend to be oddballs that are often unsuccessful. Some of them can look really weird.
A big part of the reason that East Germany was still using steam locomotives in revenue service in 1977 is that, like all communist countries, East Germany was broke. Importing oil is expensive and requires foreign currency, something that the GDR didn’t have a lot of. So continuing to use coal helped them stave off bankruptcy.
UK steam locomotives used predominantly fireboxes fabricated from copper which introduces another crown sheet failure issue - the fact it can basically melt if not covered by water... I mean it worked great for us but for all it's good points, copper's lower melting point makes the lack of boiler explosions in the UK a credit to their crews
Recently, in Japan, a driver of a train was so afraid of being late and being punished that he sped his train too fast around a curve killing himself and many others.
6:18 And when the water slashed back on top of it...well...
*A McDonald's ad played*
the german name for that type of locomotive seems to be pazifik wich is german for pacific.
Moral of the story, don't let idiots drive trains
They’re producing train engines like sausages!
Thank you for for stowing this information to me
9:46 soviet cat
Steam in '77? Easy Company needed to keep goining east. Not to fight the Soviets, just to introduce the DDR to Henry Ford and General F***ing Motors, specificly EMD.
We still used Steam on main routes until 1997 in Germany. Mostly because the public wanted to keep them. To this some narrow tracked railroads use steam! We love steam trains here.
@@SteamCheese1 what? That is not correct. Regular steam operations in Western Germany ended in 1977, and in East Germany (excluding narrow gauge lines) in 1988.
The issue with this was that this was an Interzonenzug or transit train that was scheduled to run non stop through east germany so that east german citizens could not hope on and flee. The issue is that if the train was late by any means than they would have a long conversation with the Stasi.
Seems like they repeated the hiding tactics in 1986...
Can you tell a south African railways please
Germany is now getting attention again
My left ear loved this
2:00 I think the soivet high command was pretty happy
Our friend crown sheet did the job again.
2:44 No, we dont use "pacific". Everytime someone says pacific or smth i gotta look it up on google. ;D
We do use it. Even our registry in older documents listed them as "Typ: Pacific".