the track - 1/2
The line upon which ICE 884 was travelling is not a dedicated high-speed line. It is shared with other, slower services. It has however been upgraded for high-speed trains and although less than the ICE's maximum service speed, they are permitted to run at 160Km/h.
The layout of the line placed some impediments to bringing the derailed train train safely to a halt and certainly contributed to the scale of the disaster. The quadruple track allows separation of the high-speed trains from slower services. Such an arrangement by allowing faster trains to overtake slower ones permits more intensive operation than would be possible on a two-track line. Further, to maximize track usage, it is expedient to provide at intervals, a means of transferring a train from the slow to fast lines and back.
Just ahead of the bridge, at a distance of some 300m is a turnout leading from the northbound fast line to the slow line. It was this set of facing points that caused the fourth carriage to stray from the straight-line course it was following. It seems probable that a derailed wheel was running on the outside of the right-hand rail and when it came to the turnout it was diverted towards the slowline and onto a collision course with the bridge supports.

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