Join the discussion on the following article:
Germany train crash kills 9 and injures dozens
Too bad this happened. European crash-worthy car standards are lower than in the US as they put more reliance on their traffic control system to provide safety.
A cautionary tale for those that think PTC will be the “be-all, end-all” when it comes to safety.
Amen Edward Kandl.
As for crash standards? Doesn’t matter at the speeds in use. MxS2 Mass times speed squared. You do the math. Closing speeds squared. the weights involved and nothing much survives. Nor is it feasably possible to build so anything survives intact up to a certain point.
Same fallicy is involved in the new tank car designs.
BBC Report. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35530538
Does this world class German system employee Positive Train Control?
NPR is reporting that the death toll is up to 10.
the line and all the trains involved are of course equiped with a “Positive Train Conrtole” called PZB on that line.
It should have allowed only one train to be in that track section. We will hear what went wrong today.
Sometimes drivers switch of the equipment, because they belive the divice is faulty or they are told, by a dispatcher, to pass a signal at danger.
I wonder if the damage would have been less, if both trains would have been loco hauled?
If a unified, tec superior country like Germany can’t make a safety system that can stop a head on crash, how can our splintered, localized system work. I know, all it can take is a bad component, mimicking an all ahead clear signal to cause such a tragedy!
A tragedy, yes. But to this point only 10 were killed, which is not very bad for a head-on collision. I suspect that more than ten folks may have been killed by drunk drivers around the United States after the Super Bowl.
The lesson to be learned is why this happened. Did the operator or the dispatcher override the system? That could be the fallacy of any type of PTC.
German media report that private operator Bavarian Oberlandbahn (BO), owned by French Transdev, has had some previous safety issues. BO’s trains operate on Deutsche Bahn (DB) owned-trackage through an open access arrangement. For decades, Germany has used an inductive automatic train stop system, Indusi, coupled to lineside signals. It has a solid safety record. DB has stated that the branch line’s signals and ATS (Indusi) were tested just weeks ago. This is speculation, but I wonder if an Indusi receiver aboard one of the BO’s locomotives had a problem. The investigation will tell.
On single-track branch such as this in Germany, signals are normally found only at passing sidings, located at stations with distant and home signals. There are usually no intermediate signals, and only one train is allowed between stations, which are spaced much closer than in the US. The block operation technology was invented over a century ago, with many updates since. It’s mysterious how one (or both?) of these trains could have violated a stop signal and not been stopped by ATS.