What is Dahlerau train disaster?
{{unsourced|date=July 2021}} The '''Dahlerau train disaster''' was a [[railway]] [[disaster]] that happened on 27 May 1971. It happened in [[Dahlerau]], [[Radevormwald]], [[North Rhine-Westphalia]], [[West Germany]]. == Events == A [[train|passenger train]] carrying [[student|pupils]] was travelling on the [[railway track]] from [[Wuppertal]] to Radevormwald in North Rhine-Westphalia in West Germany on the evening of 27 May 1971. The pupils belonged to the final year of a school in Radevormwald and were returning from a trip to [[Bremen]]. Around 21:00, the train had just left the [[railway station]] in ''[[Wuppertal]]-Beyenburg'' and was a few minutes away from the railway station in ''Dahlerau''. Farther south, a [[freight]] train was traveling from Radevormwald to Wuppertal, and had just arrived outside the Dahlerau station. The freight train would have to wait in the station to allow the passenger train to pass. This was necessary because the passenger train was 30 minutes late and there was only one track on the railway line outside the station. The dispatcher in the station would have to go outside and show a red [[lantern]] to the freight train, because there were no [[railway signal|signal]]s in the station. Nobody knows for sure what happened, but the freight train went right through the station and onto the track where the passenger train was running. The driver of the freight train later told that the dispatcher in the station had shown him a green light. This was the signal not to stop. The dispatcher had seen what happened and tried to hold the train back with emergency signals, but he failed and the train disappeared behind a [[curve]]. He went into his office to call the station in Wuppertal-Beyenburg, but the passenger train had already left Beyenburg. The dispatcher knew what would happen, and called the [[police]]. Meanwhile, about 800 metres north of the station, the two trains crashed. The passenger train was crushed to 1/3 of its length, because it consisted of light [[railbus]]es and the