>>1585013The black and white photos were taken on the 23 rd of December, 1968. The disaster happened near Mende, Hungary. A passenger train (with the steam loco) was mistakenly sent to left track, and collided frontally with an oncoming freight train. 43 people died in the disaster, because one of the freight cars jumped into the air and fell on a passenger carriage.
The responsibility of the crash lies with the dispatcher and the crew of the passenger train. The dispatcher selected the wrong track in the interlocking system. The system knew that the oncoming track has traffic, but the dispatched thought it was having a malfunction so he overrode the system. In this mode they can only give "call signal" to the trains, which means they can go past the signal with no more than 15 km/h. The crew of the passenger train ignored the speed restriction and passed the signal going 40 km/h. Due to the evening dusk, the crew of the freight train realized that the passenger train is on the same track as them only when the distance between them was 3-400 metres. The train engineer of the freight train shut down the engine and the diesel pump and jumped out before the crash.
