Nostalgic trip ends in tragedy for blaze family

A family of five killed in the France train fire was returning from a one-day visit to Paris to see the city where the father had proposed to his future wife more than 16 years earlier.

The Americans were among 12 people who died early yesterday when a fire on an overnight train filled a sleeping car with deadly smoke.

The blaze on the German train, which left nine others injured, was initially blamed on an electrical short-circuit. But French rail authority SNCF said that was premature and the cause was being investigated.

Fatal rail accidents are rare in France, where trains are known for speed, safety and efficiency.

Accidents, however, are not unknown in Europe – a high-speed train derailed in Germany in 1998, killing 101 people.

The train, like others in Europe, had no smoke detectors even though cigarette smoking is allowed in designated cars.

The owner of the sleeping car, German national railroad Deutsche Bahn, said the fire apparently started in the compartment of a train attendant. Smoke inhalation was blamed for the deaths.

The fire began shortly after 2am as the train with 150 passengers passed through the city of Nancy on its way to Munich, Germany, according to SNCF. The train had left Paris three hours earlier.

Among the dead were the American family, three German men, a Russian man and woman, a Hungarian man and a Greek woman.

The American family were on holiday in Germany but made a one-day trip to Paris, where Salvatore Michael Amore, 43, had proposed years ago to his wife, said Anna Marie Amore, his sister-in-law.

He and his wife, Jeanne, 43, their daughter Emily Jeanne, 12, son, Michael Bernhardt, eight, and German-born mother, Susanne, 72, all died in the fire, Ms Amore said in Connecticut.

“They called Saturday. They were excited. They were having a great time,” she said.

Survivors told of panic inside the train as screaming passengers escaped by breaking through the car’s windows and climbing out once the train had stopped.

French survivor Marc Giraud said smoke filled his compartment after the door was opened. He grabbed an emergency ladder, smashed the window of the compartment and those inside crawled out.

“We got out through that mouse hole,” Giraud told TF1 television. “I don’t know how we got out through there.”

Susan Stroembum, who was sleeping in a different car when the fire started, said she saw flames from her window when she awoke.

“Somebody screamed, ’The train is burning,”’ Stroembum said in Stuttgart’s main station, where 55 survivors were met by Deutsche Bahn with food and drink.

Firefighters rushed to the train, which stopped on a track about 800 yards outside Nancy station. All the dead were inside the charred sleeping car, said regional official Jean-Francois Cordet.

The sleeping car, No 261, was built in 1964 and underwent extensive renovation in 1999 and an overhaul in 2001, according to Deutsche Bahn spokesman Dieter Huehnerkoch. The company said the car had its last regular technical check on Monday.

Deutsche Bahn said sleeping cars were generally not equipped with fire or smoke detectors, but did have fire extinguishers. Dominique Martin, a spokeswoman for SNCF, said no trains in France carried smoke detectors.

The German railroad was sending experts and two board members to Nancy to take part in the inquiry.

Deutsche Bahn marketing chief Hans-Gustav Koch told German TV the fire probably began in the sleeping car attendant’s compartment. “We believe that the people who regrettably died were asphyxiated in their sleep,” he said.

Fatal train accidents have hit France in the past. In 1997, 13 people were killed when a train in southwestern France burst into flames after crashing into a truck filled with petrol.