Train Crash in Spain

[DJ Dangerous]

At least 39 dead so far after a head-on collision in central Spain yesterday:

 

 

 

[DJ Dangerous]

That’s some gap to mind:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1m77dmxlvlo

[commerlad]

Other than the deaths of those poor souls, What's worse in a safety sense is that over the next 4 days, there were 3 more incidents.

Over 40 Dead in 4 Spanish Train Accidents in 5 Days, Sparking Safety Crisis and Nationwide Strike - Spain Living Forum

[jhb171achill]

20 hours ago, commerlad said:

Other than the deaths of those poor souls, What's worse in a safety sense is that over the next 4 days, there were 3 more incidents.

Over 40 Dead in 4 Spanish Train Accidents in 5 Days, Sparking Safety Crisis and Nationwide Strike - Spain Living Forum

Something seriously wrong with their safety administration. That's sufficiently serious for the whole EU to find oput what happened in detail.

[Mayner]

15 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Something seriously wrong with their safety administration. That's sufficiently serious for the whole EU to find oput what happened in detail.

Having spent over ten years investigating workplace accidents in both Ireland and New Zealand one of the common trends was that management and staff in large complex organisations (including railways) often take a 'tick the box' approach to safety admin to get the job done.  In several incidents managers/staff have completed the paperwork ticked the relevant box without carrying out the corresponding physical checks.

I would not judge the Spanish too harshly sometimes accidents occur in clusters while the Spanish high speed train de-railment appears similar in nature (rail condition) to the Hatfield de-railment in the UK two of the recent incidents may have been outside of the railways immediate control (incident with crane and landslip). I investigated an near-miss in 2003/4 when a crane on a construction site toppled onto the Cork Line near Inchacore, luckily nothing was passing at the time and a driver contacted CTC and stopped rail traffic.

A cluster of three rail crashes involving multiple fatalities occurred on the East Coast Main Line in the UK (Hatfield, Selby and Potters Bar) between 2000 and 2003, CIE managed to de-rail the locos of the Sligo Passenger at Athlone and and oil train at Moyvalley in addition to staging the Cherryville Junction collision on 21 August 1983. Its arguable that Selby and Clough were unforseeable outside the railways control. Cost cutting/cutting corners to get the job done or even stubborness was a common thread in the other fatalities.  Inadequate track maintenance possibly in combination with commercial pressure in a privatised environment contributed to Hatfield, Pottersbar disasters.

101 people died in the 1998 Eschede ICE train disaster in Germany

Edited Tuesday at 08:45 by Mayner