[1] Investigators also considered other contributing factors, including the failure to stop the train, and maintenance procedures.

The train was scheduled to stop at Augsburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg, Fulda, Kassel, Göttingen, and Hanover before reaching Hamburg.

The momentum of this caused the steel tyre to flatten and it was catapulted upwards, penetrating the floor of the train carriage where it remained stuck.

The conductor, who noticed vibrations in the train, told Dittmann that company policy required him to investigate the circumstances before pulling the emergency brake.

At 10:59 local time (08:59 UTC), one of the now-derailed wheels struck the points lever of the second switch, changing its setting.

Two Deutsche Bahn railway workers who had been working near the bridge were killed instantly when the derailed car crushed them.

Coach four cleared the bridge, moved away from the track onto an embankment, and hit a group of trees before stopping.

[2]: 36:20 Separated from the rest of the carriages, the detached front power car coasted for a further three kilometers (two miles) until it came to a stop after passing Eschede railway station.

People living nearby, alerted by the sound, were the first to arrive at the scene; Erika Karl, the first, photographed the site.

Some 37 emergency physicians, who happened to be attending a professional conference in nearby Hanover, also provided assistance during the early hours of the rescue effort, as did units of the British Forces Germany.

ICE 787, travelling from Hamburg to Hanover, had passed under the bridge going in the opposite direction only two minutes earlier.

Passengers noticed this particularly in the restaurant car, where there were reports of loud vibrations in the dinnerware and of glasses "creeping" across tables.

Managers in the railway organisation had experienced these severe vibrations on a previous trip and asked to have the problem solved.

Decade-long experience at high speed gathered by train manufacturers and railway companies in Italy, France and Japan was not considered.

The very few laboratory and rail tests that were performed did not measure wheel behaviour with extended wear conditions or speeds greater than normal cruising.

Üstra reported its findings in a warning to all other users of wheels built with similar designs, including Deutsche Bahn, in late 1997.

The following factors, overlooked during design, were noted: Failing to stop the train resulted in a catastrophic series of events.

About the time of the disaster, the technicians at Deutsche Bahn's maintenance facility in Munich used only standard flashlights for visual inspection of the tyres, instead of metal fatigue detection equipment.

[5] Previously, advanced testing machines had been used; however the equipment generated many false positive error messages, so it was considered unreliable and its use was discontinued.

Investigators discovered, from a maintenance report generated by the train's on-board computer, that two months prior to the Eschede disaster, conductors and other train staff filed eight separate complaints about the noises and vibrations generated from the bogie with the defective wheel; the company did not replace the wheel.

The entire German railway network was checked for similar arrangements of switches close to possible obstacles.

Rescue workers at the crash site experienced considerable difficulties in cutting their way through the train to gain access to the victims.

[2][time needed] The official memorial was opened on 11 May 2001 in the presence of 400 relatives as well as many dignitaries, rescuers and residents of Eschede.