ROVOS RAIL CRASH

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TIA... The easiest response to any problem if in America.
 
cassiekelly said:
2 people have died, and an unborn baby - 1 is confirmed as a staff member
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I was furious when I read this. These incompentent fools deserve to get locked up. I hope the greedy owner is also brought to book because this is plain incompetent bungling and the owner is just as much to blame because he was there when it happened, but no I smell greed and the asscosiated apathy from greedy owners. Fsckers!

Yet another blow for Tourist Friendly South Africa's image.
 
metalcore said:
I was furious when I read this. These incompentent fools deserve to get locked up. I hope the greedy owner is also brought to book because this is plain incompetent bungling and the owner is just as much to blame because he was there when it happened, but no I smell greed and the asscosiated apathy from greedy owners. Fsckers!

Yet another blow for Tourist Friendly South Africa's image.
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I don’t think this is BS I KNOW this is BS (I wonder which genius thought this up). The train was supposed to change engines on a slope so gentle that this was the way it was always done. The carriages started rolling because of gravity and caused a derailment and a mega-severe accident, with coaches piled on one another and rescuers having to cut through the roofs. PUHLEEZE! An elementary knowledge of physics is required before BS like this can be promulgated with any credibility.

The American’s are ‘helping’ with the investigation. Quite right too (their citizens were involved). It would be silly to trust a half-arsed SA investigation which is just looking to evade responsibility and blame it on whites or apartheid. Not establish a truth (an alien concept).
 
metalcore said:
I was furious when I read this. These incompentent fools deserve to get locked up. I hope the greedy owner is also brought to book because this is plain incompetent bungling and the owner is just as much to blame because he was there when it happened, but no I smell greed and the asscosiated apathy from greedy owners. Fsckers!

Yet another blow for Tourist Friendly South Africa's image.
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Umm, you clearly have very little idea about how rolling stock is handled, and how specifically the Rovos Rail was handled. This has FSCKALL to do with greed and everything to do with a basic accident, that yes could have been avoided but they had done that kind of change over hundreds of time perfectly safely.
 
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Runaway-train-Warning-screams-futile-20100421

Pretoria - The traumatised owner of the Rovos Rail train which derailed just outside Pretoria said on Wednesday he screamed at others to jump - but his warnings came too late.

"I screamed at the others (the passengers and crew) to tell them to jump off," Ruhan Vos said of the train which sped out of control for about 10km from the Centurion station in the direction of Pretoria.

"I jumped off while it was moving."

Vos said the train stopped in Centurion where tourists were allowed to look at the steam locomotive which would take them to the Capital Park station.

The tourists got back on the train. Workers unhooked the electric locomotive and were busy replacing it with the steam locomotive, when the carriages started rolling backwards, said Vos.

Hand-brakes pulled up

Nobody was able to stop the 19 carriages. "Three of the carriages' hand-brakes were pulled up, but that wasn't enough," Vos said.

Sixteen of the carriages crashed into each other and the others were overturned when it derailed. Some of the carriages landed on two of the passengers.

Three people, one of whom was a pregnant woman, died in the accident.

The stomach of an employee of Rovos Rail, who was reportedly just over four months pregnant, was ripped open by the impact of the accident. She died at the scene.

Another employee died after a train carriage was lifted off her.

Sarel Coetzee, a senior planner at the Pretoria station, and his colleague, Gert Span, were the first people at the scene.

"It was just after 11:00 when we heard a loud crash," said a shocked Coetzee. "We started running in the direction of the crash. When we got there, there were people everywhere screaming for help.

"They were crying. It was chaos. I've never seen anything like it.

"People tried to climb out but they couldn't. Gert and I started breaking the carriage windows and helped people get out.

"There were one or two people in some of the carriages. Two people were trapped under a carriage and we tried to help one of them, but couldn't. When the emergency services arrived and lifted the carriage, the woman died right there."

Span told of how a man's back was broken. "It was the first man we helped. It was awful. It was gruesome."

Trauma

Werner Vermaak, spokesperson for ER24, said: "Patients were strewn all over the scene.

"Some of the passengers were thrown from the carriages and others were trapped inside. Most of the injured people sustained multiple bone fractures."

Altogether 25 tourists and some of the train's personnel were admitted in a serious condition to various hospitals in Pretoria and Johannesburg.

The remaining 68 people who were on the train were taken to the Blue Train lounge, and from there they were taken by bus.

The train derailment comes just seven weeks before hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists are expected to descend upon South Africa for the FIFA World Cup.

Isolated incident

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said in a statement that the derailment was an isolated incident that would not affect "the country's ability and readiness to host the tournament."

Vos said there were 44 Americans, four South Africans, three Germans, four Brits and four French citizens on the train, as well as 30 staff.

The two-day Cape Town-Pretoria trip can cost up to R22 000.

Rovos Rail offers holiday trips across Africa.

The Rovos Rail website says the trains can carry as many as 72 passengers in 36 cabins.

The train travels around South Africa and to Namibia and Tanzania.

The train also traverses the famed "Cape to Cairo" route, a month-long journey between Cape Town and Egypt's bustling capital.
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Somehow I don't think the owner would have been travelling on the train had this been down to his own incompetence. This does appear to be an accident, possibly brought about by negligence on the part of a worker or two. But the accident investigation should shed better light. To speculate now and make accusations directed towards the owner is plain stupid. Considering the price to travel the Rovos and the quality reputation it had to maintain in order to justify these prices, one would assume that there is enough money in the coffers to budget for a significant maintenance budget. Besides, the reports infer human error from what I can tell...
 
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When those Americans recover, they are going to take him to the cleaners! Hope his 3rd party insurance is paid up.

So far liability for this accident looks to point to his employees.
 
They can claim reasonable medical expenses etc.....

They won't be able to take him to the cleaners per se... Gotta love our legal system thank fsck...
They will try all their "emotional trauma" claims and get nowhere.
 
ToxicBunny said:
They can claim reasonable medical expenses etc.....

They won't be able to take him to the cleaners per se... Gotta love our legal system thank fsck...
They will try all their "emotional trauma" claims and get nowhere.
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Our legal system appears to be shifting towards a "payout for pu55ies" one too, if the adverts on radio for ambulance chasers (the real deal) are anything to go by...
 
DJ... said:
Our legal system appears to be shifting towards a "payout for pu55ies" one too, if the adverts on radio for ambulance chasers (the real deal) are anything to go by...
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There is one on TV as well! De Broglio Attornies IIRC.
 
I've seen that one as well....and I HATE that advert.....

I think its unethical in the extreme....
 
Nobody was able to stop the 19 carriages. "Three of the carriages' hand-brakes were pulled up, but that wasn't enough," Vos said.
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Wtf aren't they using automatic vacuum or air brakes? These systems were designed to prevent accidents like this and have been around for many years (150).
 
ponder said:
Wtf aren't they using automatic vacuum or air brakes? These systems were designed to prevent accidents like this and have been around for many years (150).
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Exactly! Even if the carriages were ‘olde worlde’ they would have been on modern (or adequate) bogies. This was a premier luxury train carrying foreign tourists, not some 2nd rate goods train in the gamadoolas. There is massive butt-covering going-on while a method is found to blame it on the ‘legacy of colonialism/apartheid/previously advantaged’.
 
Hi there

This is based on experience and i am not stating this is what caused the accident this is merely speculation.

The train uses automatic vacuum brakes which means if the vacuum is disturbed the brakes will apply(uncouple locomotive) but for some reason the personal of the rovos rail releases the brakes when the train stands for long periods(They seem to think it reduces some brake block wear,doesn't make any sense as the train is standing still) but if one releases the brakes by equalizing the vacuum/air in the brake system it reduces the strength of the braking system for some period until more vacuum then air is in the system.

So I think what happened is the brakes was released manually by whom ever when the train was stationary(which I saw rovos personal do in the past) then the steam loco attempted a coupling upfront and failed which is normal(unaligned couplers maybe) and that coupling put the train in motion which had no brakes at that moment but its also true that when coupling or uncoupling adequate handbrakes should always be applied which means more then one party is responsible for this horrible accident!!

Hillmi
 
hillmiw said:
Hi there

This is based on experience and i am not stating this is what caused the accident this is merely speculation.

<snip>
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If that is indeed the case then it is gross negligence on their part. The safety system was not put in place to be circumvented by individuals.
 
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