Rail Disaster of 1957

Introduction
Considered one of the worst rail-accidents in the history of The Netherlands, this accident resulted in protests and public outcry, as well as a change in regulations in the entire railway.

The Accident
On June 10th, 1957 a double headed 17 wooden coach train hauled by 2 NS 2100s and a luggage van departed from Voorlem at 12:15 pm with an overloaded train of holidaymakers and too many coaches for the NS 2100s to handle.

They successfully made it halfway of the journey and were going at 100km/h when they struck a slow moving commuter train that was pulling onto the mainline. The commuter train had missed its signal block but they had not been watching the signals.

The NS 2100s derailed on their sides and many of the wooden carriages telescoped. The commuter train ran off the rails, covering the mainline. The gas lamps in the carriages started a subsequent large fire, engulfing multiple carriages in flames.

Luckily, most of the passengers had been to the rear of the consist and were able to get out in time. When the dust settled and the fire was put out, 79 of the 300 people spread between the trains died and 87 had serious injuries. The accident goes down in history as one of the worst accidents in NS history.

The Aftermath
What resulted, was a change in many regulations including re-training a lot of engineers. Along with this, there was a sharp decrease of passengers in the coming week, as those feared to ride the rails. The line between Voorlem and Kestern was shut down for almost a week too, diverting traffic along the smaller branch line, and mainline via Hoogburg.