ZSSK Class 350

Accidents

• 28 June 1977: ES 499.0010 was hauling the southbound Meridian when it derailed shortly before 10 AM due to excessive speed at the northern end of Bratislava hlavná stanica, overturning, hitting a retaining wall, an electric shunter of the station, before coming to a rest turned 180 degrees. The driver of the Meridian was killed after falling out of the locomotive and another 21 persons were injured. The locomotive had only travelled at the time of the accident, and was eventually scrapped after a year and a half in service. The accident's causes are still unknown to this day due to the death of the train driver but he had unexplainably accelerated between Lamač and the tunnels just north of the railway station. The investigative committee and the railway workers eventually got involved in lengthy polemics in their attempts to find an explanation for the accident; the committee blamed the accident on the brake failure while the railwaymen believed the cause to be something else.
• 10 November 1989: 350 009 was hauling the northbound Balt-Orient when it passed a signal at danger and hit a local train from Praha-Holešovice to from the rear, four minutes after midnight, at a speed of, in Nové Kopisty. The accident led to 6 deaths and 58 injuries; the train was lightly loaded due to the fall of the Berlin Wall that had happened a few hours earlier. The locomotive was scrapped, along with the first 6 cars of the express train. The accident was caused by the poor functioning of the in-cab alerter system.
• 23 January 2013: 350 011 was hauling the westbound Kriváň when it hit a snowplow truck at a level crossing near Liptovský Mikuláš, leading to the death of a 50 year old train driver, Ján Šarudi. The locomotive was out in service for a year until it was repaired by ŽOS Vrútky and re-entered service in 2014.