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12 hurt as train hits buffer at Lucerne rail station

A dozen people were injured in the central Swiss city of Lucerne Monday, when a train sped into the station and slammed into a buffer, police said.

Published: 3 February 2020 12:18 CET

12 hurt as train hits buffer at Lucerne rail station

Illustration photo: AFP

No one was seriously wounded in the accident, but 12 passengers on the train suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital, regional Luzern police said.

It remained unclear why the driver of the train, travelling from Zurich, had failed to slow down when entering the Luzern station — its final destination — at around 10.00 am (0900 GMT), police said.

Unusual train disruption in #switzerland after engine fails to stop, hits buffers in Lucerne. 12 injured, reports say #luzernunfall pic.twitter.com/tdPN2ISUfG

— Guy Dresser (@guydresser) February 3, 2020

“The train was going too fast and couldn't stop,” police spokesman Christian Bertschi told AFP, adding that an investigation had been opened into the incident.

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Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

In an announcement slipped out just before Christmas Eve, the government said it had instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to stop all planning for the Borås to Gothenburg link, stop the ongoing work on linking Hässleholm and Lund.

“The government wants investments made in the railway system to first and foremost make it easier for commuting and cargo traffic, because that promotes jobs and growth,” infrastructure minister Andreas Carlson said in a press release. “Our approach is for all investments in the railways that are made to be more cost effective than if the original plan for new trunk lines was followed.”

Ulf Olsson, the Social Democrat mayor in Borås, told the TT newswire that the decision was “a catastrophe”.

“We already have Sweden’s slowest railway, so it’s totally unrealistic to try to build on the existing railway,” he said. We are Sweden’s third biggest commuting region and have no functioning rail system, and to release this the day before Christmas Eve is pretty symptomatic.”

Per Tryding, the deputy chief executive for the Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, complained that the decision meant Skåne, Sweden’s most southerly county, would now have no major rail infrastructure projects.

“Now the only big investment in Skåne which was in the plan is disappearing, and Skåne already lay far behind Gothenburg and Stockholm,” he said.

“This is going to cause real problems and one thing that is certain that it’s going to take a very long time, whatever they eventually decide. It’s extremely strange to want to first suspend everything and then do an analysis instead of doing it the other way around.”

The government’s instructions to the transport agency will also mean that there will be no further planning on the so-called central parts of the new planned trunk lines, between Linköping and Borås and Hässleholm and Jönköping.

Carlson said that the government was prioritising “the existing rail network, better road standards, and a build-out of charging infrastructure”.

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