Train Crash near Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

[gordonthemoron]

they're usually justified though as the journalists in general don't have any idea about the subject they're writing.

For instance I have a journalist friend who writes for Dow Jones about stock markets etc. He can't even add up

 

[rebmcr]

They'd be emergency-only, wheel braking would be used in service.

The lateral force has to build up, it doesn't immediately transition from 0g to ng (where n is the derailment force). That means there's a massive amount of time (on the order of 100s-of-milliseconds, or even whole seconds) for a sensor + dedicated microprocessor package to activate.

I seem to be recalling though, that track brakes don't work well above a certain speed, which would account for their appearance only in trams.

 

[Bungle73]

Why does almost every thread have to degenerate into a (usually unjustified) attack on newspapers:roll:

Because they derserve it?

 

[Antman]

Because they derserve it?

Really? Well register your protest by boycotting them..............I mean how dare they report on..........err.........news items

 

[edwin_m]

Vehicle 1- Driving end. Heavy
Vehicle 2- Technical car/generator. Heavy
Vehicle 3- Furthest forward passenger car. Light.

Probably gonna be the first to not stay upright.

The weight doesn't matter much in a pure overturning derailment, as both the force trying to push the train over and the force holding it down are proportional to the mass. What is important is the height of the centre of gravity above rail level, since this defines how much the lateral force has to be, as a proportion of the weight, before the vehicle will overturn.

With the coach being low-slung with most of its heavy parts probably in the underframe, and the generator car being much higher with a diesel engine etc above floor level, the generator car almost certainly has the higher centre of gravity and the greater risk of overturning.

That's not to say of course that the derailment didn't start elsewhere, but if it did then I think there is something else at work.

 

[ainsworth74]

If people wish to discuss the quality or otherwise of newspapers in general I would ask that you do so elsewhere unless it's directly relevant to this thread. For instance pointing out inaccuracies about the reporting of this accident would be relevant, taking general pot shots at the Daily Mail is not.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Reading the comments on one of the Guardian stories.. Wow!

The Guardian is my usual read and I too was annoyed at the main report on the crash.
All the units quoted were in (inaccurate) mph, and at one point the reporter refers to "railroad ties" rather than sleepers.
I suspect they have printed an on-the-spot report from an American journalist whose knowledge of railways, particularly European ones, is limited.

The other reports in the paper are perfectly good.
A case of rip off and reproduce, I think.

Somewhere it also says the curve was laid in the days of General Franco, so that makes them "fascist tracks" so they must be "bad".

 

[bnm]

Punching in train accidents speeding uk in to Google/Wikipedia isn't research.
Reading the full accident enquiry reports is.

Err... LTC Rolt, OS Nock, Stanley Hall and others on my bookshelf. An entire set of Alan Earnshaw's 'Trains in Trouble' series. Have read the full reports of all the accidents I listed, mostly from therailwaysarchive.co.uk. In the days before official reports were available online I regularly purchased them from HMSO. Have read all the reports published by the RAIB since 2006 and have email alerts set-up from them. Wrote a large article for a local paper on the 10th anniversary of the Taunton Sleeper Car fire, the article being a re-write of a paper submitted for my A-level English.

It may be an unusual branch of rail enthusiasm, but I've always been interested in the accidents and incidents.

As I said before, feel free to draw inferences from what I post, but don't presume to know how I know things. It would get pretty tedious if posts were required to have line by line citations showing source material.

Because at least one of the ones you had listed had other major contributory factors.

Nearly all accidents involving excessive speed have other major contributory factors. But I'll say it again, my list was in response to notadriver saying, "British drivers are professional and don't speed." That's all it was. Examples to disprove a statement, drawn from a wide reading of the subject over 25 years.

notadriver has subsequently back-pedalled slightly from that statement by saying he meant that British train drivers don't do it deliberately. I could draw an inference from that, but as it may be the wrong inference I'll not do so.

 

[jon0844]

The curve might have been there years, but the track looked pretty new.

Far too many politically led posts, which annoys me. I regard it as below the belt, at least until there's proof or substantial evidence.

 

[Starfish Prime]

The curve might have been there years, but the track looked pretty new.

Far too many politically led posts, which annoys me. I regard it as below the belt, at least until there's proof or substantial evidence.

The curve was in the old track, the curve is also a junction with the old track to Santiago rail station. You can see in the map the curve and the old track, in the new track there is a viaduct while the old track has a U shape.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=42.859467~-8.527319&lvl=19&dir=0&sty=a&form=LMLTCC

When building the HS and the Atlantic corridor upgrade there were plans to build a new station outside the city but they were rejected because it was impractical, in the middle of nowhere. With that new station the curve wouldn´t be there.

The driver is now arrested but he has remained silent. I don´t know enough laws to say that is his right or not. According to Renfe president he should have started the braking maneuver 4km before the curve.

Regarding the access to the cab, after the Madrid 11-M bombings the access of non authorized personnel is strictly forbidden. Remember that for AVE trains you even have to go through a security gate and they X-ray your luggage. Taking photographs at an Adif station is also forbidden.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

As in the UK - best left for the official enquiries and investigations ......

A derailment at that speed with a concrete lined right of way is rather unforgiving.

 

[DD]

Has there been any official stance regarding overspeed protection for such a drastic speed change?

 

[jon0844]

Not that I can see. Seems mixed opinions on whether there was anything to automatically stop or slow the train, on that section at least

 

[al78]

Driver is apparently refusing to answer police questions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23465992

 

[jon0844]

Possibly good advice until he has a good lawyer.

 

[edwin_m]

As in the UK - best left for the official enquiries and investigations ......

A derailment at that speed with a concrete lined right of way is rather unforgiving.

Actually the coaches that ended up in the retained cutting have come off relatively well and I think most people in these will have survived. I can see two very severely damaged (there may be more) and I assume these ran up against the start of the retaining wall and were possibly crushed by the heavy generator and power cars behind. I would expect most of the casualties to have been in this section.

 

[Starfish Prime]

Somewhere it also says the curve was laid in the days of General Franco, so that makes them "fascist tracks" so they must be "bad".

That line has a dark past. I was conceived in the 20s as a way to reduce the times between Galicia and Madrid. Some works started in the 30s by the republican government and were cancelled due to high cost and complexity. After the Civil war the fascist government restarted the works using forced labor, war prisoners. Most of the workers that were not forced labor worked just for food.

Between Ourense and Zamora the line crosses a mountain range with mountains up to 2.000 meters. The conditions were very poor, specially in winter and the death toll was high between the workforce.

There are some media reporting that Santiago´s accident could be the worst in Spanish history. Torre del Bierzo train accident on 1944 was the worst by far, but the official figure was 78 after a massive cover up by the Franco´s government. The estimate figures are around 500 deaths in Torre del Bierzo.

 

[YorkshireRider]

Why does almost every thread have to degenerate into a (usually unjustified) attack on newspapers:roll:

To be fair the attack is more against some of the absolute tw+ts that read them

 

[ReverendFozz]

Driver is apparently refusing to answer police questions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23465992

Probably wise not to talk right now, until he sees a Lawyer, seems like he is going a good one.

Someone commented to me that by not talking, that shows a sign of guilt, could not be more wrong, as people are normally advised not to talk to police until a solicitor or lawyer is present, well that's a right I have always used when I was in trouble and was actively encouraged to use that right by Police, I can only assume though that Spain has a similar right to silence

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2

 

[notadriver]

Err... LTC Rolt, OS Nock, Stanley Hall and others on my bookshelf. An entire set of Alan Earnshaw's 'Trains in Trouble' series. Have read the full reports of all the accidents I listed, mostly from therailwaysarchive.co.uk. In the days before official reports were available online I regularly purchased them from HMSO. Have read all the reports published by the RAIB since 2006 and have email alerts set-up from them. Wrote a large article for a local paper on the 10th anniversary of the Taunton Sleeper Car fire, the article being a re-write of a paper submitted for my A-level English.

It may be an unusual branch of rail enthusiasm, but I've always been interested in the accidents and incidents.

As I said before, feel free to draw inferences from what I post, but don't presume to know how I know things. It would get pretty tedious if posts were required to have line by line citations showing source material.



Nearly all accidents involving excessive speed have other major contributory factors. But I'll say it again, my list was in response to notadriver saying, "British drivers are professional and don't speed." That's all it was. Examples to disprove a statement, drawn from a wide reading of the subject over 25 years.

notadriver has subsequently back-pedalled slightly from that statement by saying he meant that British train drivers don't do it deliberately. I could draw an inference from that, but as it may be the wrong inference I'll not do so.

I have not 'back-pedalled' at all, I did mean deliberately. I'm not talking about 25 years ago - I'm talking about modern day - 2013. Drivers of road vehicles deliberately exceed the speed limit. Professional train drivers do not deliberately do so.

 

[Teaboy1]

Could we please PLEASE get back to the thread !!
Question, does RENFE use AWP or whatever the abbreviation is to override the driver?
It appears not to be the case here so next question is why would RENFE allow such drivers to do what they please and disregard the rulebook [is speed limits in the rule book, would think it is!!].
Sounds to me like RENFE need investigating as well as driver in not having corporate responsibility over the control of their trains when drivers disregard/faint/collapse etc while on the footplate.
RENFE must take some heat over this IMHO as they are in the end responsible for safety and that of passengers lives. Why did the auto brake not work if speed limit exceeded? I know its not same as SPAD but lives have been lost and so the culture needs to change.

 

[notadriver]

This is a very good point. Overspeed protection should exist as a minimum for approaches to speed restrictions and stop signals in case the driver does faint or collapse at exactly the wrong moment. With public transport I've noticed the company is always liable in some way - not just the driver.

 

[68000]

Could we please PLEASE get back to the thread !!
Question, does RENFE use AWP or whatever the abbreviation is to override the driver?
It appears not to be the case here so next question is why would RENFE allow such drivers to what they please and disregard the rulebook [is speed limits in the rule book, would think it is!!].
Sounds to me like RENFE need investigating as well as driver in not having corporate responsibility over the control of their trains when drivers disregard/faint/collapse etc while on the footplate.
RENFE must take some heat over this IMHO as they are in the end responsible for safety and that of passengers lives. Why did the auto brake not work if speed limit exceeded? I know its not same as SPAD but lives have been lost and so the culture needs to change.

If you are referring to DSD then I have no idea if there is an equivalent on RENFE although it is irrelevant to this accident. If you mean AWS, then I believe they have a similar system but that only kicks in for signals at red. The signal was green therefore no protection for the overspeed on the curve. It would appear that the ETCS transition was a few km's before the curve and the question needs to be asked of RENFE about this transition and if it was risk assessed appropriately.

I would have expected the ETCS to reduce the train speed before exiting ETCS control especially when there is such a substantial reuirement to reduce speed later on to take the curve. If that was unpalatable, maybe they should have looked at approach releasing the signal closest to the bend to ensure the driver has reduced his speed. Maybe they considered all this and concluded that it was ALARP as it is.

 

[notadriver]

I assume there is no tpws equivalent then?

 

[68000]

Apparantly not for speed restrictions at this location

 

[455driver]

Driver is apparently refusing to answer police questions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23465992

Which is exactly what we are told to do until we have a suitable witness if ever we are involved in any sort of incident.

 

[DD]

And the media are currently hanging out the driver yet not looking at the whole picture, why was he allowed to enter the bend at such a high speed, why was there no overspeed protection. And obviously the company will be happy to sit quiet while the media focus solely on the drivers speeding whilst also ignoring why did such a drastic speed change not have over speed protection.

 

[Antman]

To be fair the attack is more against some of the absolute tw+ts that read them

Do sweeping generalisations like this serve any purpose? Aren't we all free to read any paper we choose?:roll:
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

And the media are currently hanging out the driver yet not looking at the whole picture, why was he allowed to enter the bend at such a high speed, why was there no overspeed protection. And obviously the company will be happy to sit quiet while the media focus solely on the drivers speeding whilst also ignoring why did such a drastic speed change not have over speed protection.

I don't think anybody has been 'hung out to dry'.

There will obviously be questions about the drivers actions and the apparent lack of safety equipment to prevent a driver entering the bend at above the speed limit.

 

[GadgetMan]

I think (but maybe wrong) I remember one of the news reports saying the Driver had driven over that section more than 60 times. Another report suggested he'd recently moved/transferred to the area.

If the above is true then although he may be a very experienced driver I would say he was pretty new to the route and at a higher risk of slipping up. Which then brings into question how well he was trained and tested before being passed out to drive over the route (Or was the other mentioned driver his Instructor?).

 

[Stuwhu]

That line has a dark past. I was conceived in the 20s as a way to reduce the times between Galicia and Madrid.

To go off topic... but can't see how your conception would quicken up train times.. have you had your 90th birthday yet