Passengers halt speeding tram by breaking into vehicle cabin after driver passes out

Witnesses say emergency brake failed to stop runaway tram in Germany

Police said they received calls from frightened passengers on a tram speeding towards the German city of Bonn on Sunday (Rex Features)

Passengers who stopped a speeding tram after the driver suffered a medical emergency and passed out have been hailed as heroes.

Police received numerous calls from distressed passengers on a tram heading towards Bonn, Germany, shortly before 1am on Sunday as it sped past several stations, despite the emergency brake being pulled.

“We were scared to death, there was nothing we could do,” a witness told the local General-Anzeiger newspaper.

Passengers eventually managed to stop the tram by breaking the glass door of the driver’s cabin and calling SWB, the local public transport company, to ask how to halt the tram by themselves.

The city transport authority said the emergency brake handle does not immediately stop the tram by itself and instead sends a signal to the driver, who decides whether to stop the vehicle.

“Something like this must not happen at all,” Ashok Sridharan, the mayor of Bonn, told the local newspaper.

“[The passengers] did exactly the right thing in a dangerous situation and likely saved lives.”

The driver, who was taken to hospital after the incident, has since been released and is recovering.

He is now on sick leave and has been given psychological care, a local authority spokesperson said.

No passengers suffered serious injuries in the incident, although the two men who broke open the glass door suffered minor injuries on their hands.

SWB has come under scrutiny in Germany because the emergency brake did not stop the tram.

“It is unacceptable that in the case of light rail vehicles – unlike in rail transport – actuation of the emergency brake only triggers the driver, but not the braking of the train,” Rolf Beu, a state parliament politician in the region, told General-Anzeiger.

SWB has defended its emergency system as prosecutors investigate the incident and argued that it has systems in place to alert officials if a driver appears to become unresponsive.

However, the company said these systems appear to have malfunctioned in this case.

Jorn Zauner, SWB’s railway operations manager, said the tram could have been stopped by switching off electricity to the vehicle but insisted that opening the door to the driver’s cabin was a faster solution to the problem.