Dozens die in Spanish train derailment.

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**reds8n**

Dreadful, ghastly thing to occur.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23442018

A train has derailed in north-western Spain, killing at least 77 of its 218 passengers and injuring more than 100, officials in the Galicia region say.

All eight carriages of the Madrid to Ferrol train came off the tracks near the city of Santiago de Compostela.

Media reports say the train may have been travelling at more than twice the speed limit around a curve.

Officials have not commented on the cause. Analysts say it is the worst train accident in Spain in 40 years.

Spain generally has a relatively good record in terms of rail safety, says the BBC's Tom Burridge.

This is a country which has invested huge amounts of money in its rail network, he says.

Spain's last major rail disaster was in 1972 when 77 people were killed in a derailment in Andalusia in the south.

'A Dante-esque scene'

Railway firm Renfe said the train came off the tracks on a bend about 3 or 4km (2-2.5 miles) from Santiago de Compostela station at 20:41 local time (18:41 GMT).

It was on the express route between Madrid and the ship-building city of Ferrol on the Galician coast.

Renfe says it and the track operating company Adif are collaborating with a judge appointed to investigate the accident.

Government officials said they believed the crash was an accident, but that no statement would be made regarding the cause without a proper investigation.

"We are moving away from the hypothesis of sabotage or attack," one unnamed official said.

Rescue workers have continued to search for survivors in the wreckage.

They have so far recovered 73 bodies from the accident site, while four more people died in hospital, a spokeswoman for Galicia's supreme court said on Thursday. Judges are responsible for registering deaths in Spain.

It is not known how many Renfe employees were on board the train.

Images from the site showed bodies covered with blankets next to the tracks, as emergency crews searched the wreckage.

More than 140 passengers were receiving treatment for a range of light to more serious injuries, a health official told reporters on Thursday morning.

Residents flocked to hospitals in the area to donate blood in response to an appeal.

Meanwhile, 320 Spanish police officers were deployed to help out the rescue operation.

The leader of the regional government Alberto Nunez Feijoo described it as "a Dante-esque scene", in comments to Radio Cadena Ser.

One witness, Ricardo Montesco, described how the train carriages "piled on top of one another" after the train hit a curve.

"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning...I was in the second wagon and there was fire. I saw corpses," he told Spanish Cadena Ser radio station.

Several eyewitnesses described the train travelling very fast before it derailed.

The derailment happened on the eve of Santiago de Compostela's main annual festival where thousands of Christian pilgrims were expected to flock to the city in honour of Saint James.

The city's tourism board said all festivities planned for Thursday have been cancelled.

Local journalist Francisco Camino said the region was in shock.

"This is a tiny place and nothing happens here, nothing important or tragic," he told the BBC.

"We were preparing for the celebrations and now this could turn out to be the worst train crash in many years.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, convened an emergency ministerial meeting late on Wednesday. He is due to visit the scene of the accident on Thursday.

Hope any and all Dakkanauts and their friends and families are all safe and sound.

**d-usa**

Looks like the train went way to fast for that section. From what I have read the curve is rated for a max speed of 50 mph and the train entered it going almost 120 mph.

**Ouze**

Horrible imagery from this.

**d-usa**

Ouze wrote:
Horrible imagery from this.

Just saw a video of the crash happening on the news, pretty bad deal.

**Ratius**

Jaysus, looks like it was the second carriage that skipped the tracks not the lead cab?

Aweful stuff.

**Ardaric_Vaanes**

d-usa wrote:
Ouze wrote:
Horrible imagery from this.

Just saw a video of the crash happening on the news, pretty bad deal.

Damn...that made me flinch as it crashed.

**Velour_Fog**

So the driver was 52 and had 30 years experience... I thought it might've been a young lad who was dicking around, but even so, there's supposed to be safeguards on modern trains to prevent them from going over the recommended speed for each bit of track.

**Breotan**

The passenger cars are much lighter than the engine so it stands to reason they'd flip first from going too fast around that corner.

**Jihadin**

Not to be the morbid evil SoB here....no one tampered with the tracks on that curve right? Just Engineer being overconfidence or complacent?

**Grey Templar**

I think going over twice the speed limit would explain it. even a perfect track wouldn't take that speed.

Now maybe tampering with the engine itself is a possibility, but not the track.

**Jihadin**

How many times though? Because it sounds like the enginer use to it....or was it a new enginer for that route?

**Grey Templar**

it appears the engineer was experienced, from what I heard anyway. He should have known he was traveling way too fast.

You could easily derail only going 20-30% over the limit depending on the curve. More than twice the limit seems excessive and unusual for a minor mistake or lack of experience.

**Jihadin**

I'm going with "Complacent". How heavy of an investigation are they on him?

**d-usa**

Jihadin wrote:
I'm going with "Complacent". How heavy of an investigation are they on him?

Focusing both on him as the driver, and on possible technological failures.

This doesn't look good for him though:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2377113/Spain-train-crash-video-At-78-people-killed-140-injured-Santiago-Compostela-derailment.html

**Howard A Treesong**

Apparently he was doing 120mph on a section of track with a 50mph limit. Possibly trying to make up time because the service was a little late but that seems massively excessive. It'll be interesting to see if this is so, and then whether the driver was simply rogue or if there's a widespread culture of this behaviour having developed.

**Albatross**

Yeah, this sucks. I've just come back from Spain. :(

**kronk**

What a horrible story and event. So many lost so quickly, possibly due to speeding.

It looked like that 2nd or 3rd car had started to lift up before coming into camera.

**cincydooley**

This may be a stupid question from someone that doesn't use trains or even public transit:

Is there any reason to even have a human operator actually running the trains? Could the trains not be fully automated?

**Grey Templar**

Well in the event of an emergency the operator can react accordingly.

They could be automated, but you'd still want to have a human operator in case of an emergency.

**Disciple of Fate**

Even if automated its not always safe. In this case automated safety measures failed to kick in for an unknown reason. Possibly because the EU safety system transfered to the national one around that point in the track, but that it didnt happen. So both the operator and the automated system failed to slow the train down to prevent this horrible accident.

Edit: Latest statement from the director of the company says that the safety measures worked accordingly and that it signaled to the driver to slow down 4 kilometers in advance. Company puts the cause on human error.

**Miguelsan**

Yup it was totally human error and doesn't have anything to do with the fact that ADIF and RENFE are trying to win a big contract for building high speed track and trains in Brasil at all.

I will wait until the judge releases the results of the ongoing inquire.

M.

PD: To clarify, the most credible scenario on the table it's that the automatic mechanisms glitched as the place the accident happened it's a transition place from one security system to the other and the driver reacted too late being unable to brake on time.