At least 10 dead after two trains collide south of Madrid, regional official says

Binary_Bark

Binary_Bark

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For Spaniards, this rail crash near Urda brings back very painful memories.

It was only last January when a high-speed train derailed in southern Spain, and its rear carriages went into the path of a state-run Renfe train, claiming the lives of 46 people.

The Adamuz collision was Spain’s worst rail tragedy since 2013 and cast doubts on safety on the country’s prized high-speed rail network.

This latest disaster is further south but again it involves a Renfe train and another run by private operator Iryo.

The circumstances are very different as at Adamuz there was a fracture on the track, while at Urda there appears to have been a failure involving safety mechanisms.

But again, there are new concerns about safety on Spain’s railways.
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www.bbc.com

At least 10 dead after two trains collide south of Madrid, regional official says

A high-speed train has crashed into the back of another train at Urda, with at least two carriages off the tracks.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 

More than 500 passengers were travelling on the trains involved in the crash
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Esther Padilla, spokesperson for the government of Castilla-La Mancha region, tella TVE that one of the trains - managed by the Iryo company - was carrying 146 passengers plus one baby, while the Renfe-managed train had 397 passengers on board.

"The number of confirmed deaths, currently at 10, will almost certainly rise," she said. "The situation is going to worsen."
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The BBC reports some alarming causes/triggers for this crash:
- Transport Minister Óscar Puente says a computer failure led to the initial halting of six moving trains, including the two trains that subsequently collided
- "In the event of a system failure, the control centre takes over," Puente says
- However, for "inexplicable" reasons, the control centre decided to allow the high-speed train to move again, without any speed restrictions, before it hit the second train
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Political pressure too:
This tragedy comes just nine months after 46 people died in a rail collision on the same Madrid-Seville line.

That accident unleashed an intense debate about the safety of Spain's high-speed rail system, the largest in Europe and until recently the envy of many neighbouring countries.

It also piled pressure on the left-wing government of Pedro Sánchez, as many Spaniards wondered if his administration had under-invested in the rail system.

This latest crash will intensify the doubts about the rail system's safety and criticism of the government's management of it.

In particular, Transport Minister Óscar Puente, is likely to come under fire.

The leader of the main opposition People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who hopes to unseat Sánchez in next month's general election, has said today that Spaniards "have a right to a complete and independent review of the entire rail network".
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Edit: Incredible aerial image of the crash scene:
66888169-4e47-4aab-9607-740743ff550d.jpg.webp
 
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rietrot said:
It is crazy that something like this can happen with modern tech that should be able to map trains very accurately and easily with GPS data.
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Agree, but there were also other factors at play: the rail was not up to shape for one, human error and others. Tech alone can't do anything about maintenance, human inspection, and corruption
 
rietrot said:
It is crazy that something like this can happen with modern tech that should be able to map trains very accurately and easily with GPS data.
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Definitely out of the ordinary, according to the BBC:
The Spanish transport minister said the circumstances were "inexplicable".

According to regulations, under such circumstances, a train driver would be required to proceed at what is known as "sight speed" - about 40km/h (25mph), a speed that allows them to stop in time if they encounter an obstacle.

Officials will investigate what order the Renfe train got, if it was travelling at the usual speed for that section of track - "around 200km/h" according to the minister, and, more significantly, why did the operator not stop its journey when his screen would have displayed that another train on the same line was stationary.
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"It isn't possible that our train was stopped for five or 10 minutes and that the other train wasn't told to stop," one of them said.

"How can this happen with the technology we have?," he added. "It's not normal. We weren't told anything. The person who should have been told something was the driver of the other train. We wouldn't have cared as long as the other train had been warned. I don't understand this."

Affected passengers were visibly angry.
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Gordon_R said:
Definitely out of the ordinary, according to the BBC:
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Then it creates another interesting dilemma. Over reliance on tech.

The train driver isn't even paying attention he is probably playing on his phone as everything is automated and if something goes wrong(which never happens) an alarm will sound.
 
rietrot said:
Then it creates another interesting dilemma. Over reliance on tech.

The train driver isn't even paying attention he is probably playing on his phone as everything is automated and if something goes wrong(which never happens) an alarm will sound.
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This BBC update suggests a clusterF in the control center, not so much a problem with the technology:
www.bbc.com

Spain train crash: Audio reveals exchanges between control centre and drivers

The recordings appear to show one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another up ahead had stalled.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
In one recording, a control centre operator is speaking to the driver of the Renfe train, which was travelling behind the other train and was having some technical difficulties.

After some exchanges, the control operator tells the driver: "Continue your journey and then proceed under [Lateral Signalling Block], at normal speed with normal operation."

The driver replies, "At normal speed?" To which the controller says: "Yes."
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The driver of the other train - operated by Iryo - says in another audio recording that communication with the train-control system has been lost and it is not moving.

The train "is stationary in front of the entry signal at Urda", the driver tells the control centre operator. After a series of exchanges, the driver is then told to "resume the journey" normally.
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The Iryo driver then contacts the control centre again, according to a later recording, saying they cannot start the train. "The train won't allow me to control the [security] system. That's why I am still stopped in front of the entry signal," they say.

The latter recording suggests that the controller had been notified that the Iryo train remained stationary as the Renfe train approached.
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With so much modern technology there should be a failsafe on both trains to stop the train when an approaching train is detected.
A train is a massive object it's not hard to detect, even just vibration on the rail would tell you one is approaching
 
airborne said:
With so much modern technology there should be a failsafe on both trains to stop the train when an approaching train is detected.
A train is a massive object it's not hard to detect, even just vibration on the rail would tell you one is approaching
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Every fail-safe has to have an override. The question is who authorises it, and what limits are placed on the override. Rail signalling technology is more than 150 years old, the rules are well established, and do not rely on assumptions.

When technicians come to service our lift, they have all kinds of overrides to allow the lift to move when it is stuck, etc. They are properly qualified, and authorised to do so. I would assume train operators have the same kind of rules...
 
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