A tram and a heavy-duty transporter are lying next to the highway in the ditch - that was the situation on Tuesday on the A9 near Triptis. The rescue is complete, but not the work at the scene of the accident.
Triptis/Mannheim (dpa/th) - After the accident involving a heavy-duty truck loaded with a 42-metre-long tram on Autobahn 9, the rescue work was completed early Wednesday morning. The laborious recovery of the vehicles at Triptis took about nine hours, as a spokeswoman for the highway police said. The semi-trailer truck loaded with the tram had slid down a ten-meter-deep embankment on Tuesday night.
After two lanes were temporarily closed in the direction of Munich, the middle lane has been open to traffic again since Wednesday morning. The left lane was kept clear for traffic at all times. According to the spokeswoman, the right lane and the Rodaborn car park remained closed in the morning.
The crash barrier still needs to be repaired there. The repairs should be completed around 5 p.m., it said. After that, the motorway in the direction of Munich should be open to three lanes again
The 53-year-old driver of the heavy-duty transporter had lost control of the vehicle between the Lederhose and Triptis junctions for reasons that have not yet been clarified. It went off the road to the right and broke through the guardrail. According to the police, the accident resulted in damage of around 2.5 million euros.
According to the spokeswoman, the tram was separated into five parts for the rescue. The salvage company erected the wagons and lifted them off the embankment with a mobile crane. The vehicle parts as well as the truck and its trailer were loaded onto five low-loaders for transport. "Everything else will take a little longer," said a spokesman for the highway police. Both the embankment and the soil contaminated with operating materials at the accident site must be treated. The work should start in the coming days.
However, the Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr GmbH saw little chance that the almost completely destroyed tram could be repaired. The damage pattern gives little reason for confidence, said a spokesman in Mannheim. "Probably the vehicle can only be cannibalized." In particular due to the currently very tense spare parts and thus vehicle situation, the loss weighs heavily.
According to the spokesman, the train was an older RNV6 vehicle that was being overhauled by a specialist company in Halberstadt in Saxony-Anhalt and should now be returned to Mannheim.
