Officials behind the magnetic levitation train project in Germany held an emergency meeting overnight after a weekend crash that killed 23 people in what investigators believe was a catastrophic breakdown in communication.
As crash experts continued to comb through the wreckage of the Transrapid train at Lathen near the Dutch border, German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee called representatives from the two companies developing the train, Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, to a meeting in Berlin.
Friday´s accident was the worst in the history of the train, which is propelled by electromagnetic force causing it to ´float´ about one centimetre above the track. But the revolutionary technology has been beset by high development and operating costs.
The only example of the monorail train in commercial use is in China, where it takes passengers from the financial district of Shanghai to the city´s Pudong airport at speeds of up to 430 km/h.
China has for years been discussing plans to extend the system to link Shanghai with the city of Hangzhou.
The head of the Transrapid project in Shanghai, Wu Xiangming, visited the crash site at the weekend.
Commander Wu was informed at the scene in order to be sure that nothing similar happens to him, said Rudolf Schwarz of IABG, the company which operates the test track where the accident took place.
The southern German city of Munich has also been considering building a Transrapid to ferry people between its commercial centre and airport.
Talks about the plans for Munich had been scheduled to take place over the next week but will probably be postponed in the aftermath of the accident.
Edwin Huber, the economy minister of Bavaria, warned that the disaster definitely constitutes a problem, psychologically and politically.
The Transrapid was travelling at 170 km/h when it collided with a maintenance vehicle, killing 23 of the 31 people on board. Ten people survived, including the two drivers of the service vehicle.
Investigators are increasingly convinced that human error led to the collision.
Under normal operating conditions, the train and the maintenance vehicle – which is used to clean the track – should not have been in operation at the same time.
Prosecutor Alexander Retemeyer said the probe was focusing on the control room, where two employees had been surveying the track.
A handwritten entry in a log book had shown that the maintenance vehicle was out on the track so the Transrapid should not have been allowed to start its fateful journey.
The service vehicle had probably not received any order to return to its shed and leave the monorail clear, Mr Retemeyer told a news conference on Saturday.
In any case, the service vehicle should have been visible on their computer screens because it was equipped with a GPS positioning device.
The control room operators were still too shocked to be questioned.
It emerged that there had been an accident on the test track two years ago when two maintenance vehicles collided after sliding on black ice, causing minor damage but no casualties.
And a carriage on the Shanghai train caught fire last month but was quickly extinguished.
The backers of the project defended the technology used in Transrapid.
I remain convinced that this is a safe form of transport technology, ThyssenKrupp chairman Ekkhard Schulz said.
Christian Wulff, leader of the state of Lower Saxony where the accident took place, said the disaster appeared to be the result of human error and a chain of unfortunate events.
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