One has to wonder if the cars had remained connected what would the results have been ?? Are any of the various Talgo models in the PNW operated with a more robust coupler system ?? No shelf couplers ?
BBC word news reported at about 0930 GMT on PBS that 77 person died. They also reported that the train may have been going 190+ KPM and speed limit waas 80 KPH. ( ~ 118 mph vs 50 MPH ). Wonder if that true ?
Questions for Mario. What guage is this line & what type train control ? ( ETRMS ? )
Looking at how the cars accordianed makes one wonder if that contributed to deaths. The French derailment last week the fatalities were on the platform (s) and that train mostly stayed in a straight line. These are questions for the Talgos in the Pacific north west ?
Many residents reported hearing an explosion. I have no idea how loud a 25 Kv line shorting out would sound ?? Is this even 25 Kv ?? .
Here is a You tube video of the actual acccident. a 9 second video with only about 2 seconds of the accident. If one of our computer geeks can slow it down for us it would help. Appears that car behind power car tilted and pulled power car off rails. Then a quick look at rear cars acting like anaccordian.
You get my hands down vote as the person in these forums who seems to have a wider grasp of passenger train news around the world than anyone.
I have a picture of you sitting in a room somewhere, surrounded by TV monitors, focused on all the railroad news feeds. Much like the commodity traders in our company! They have a minimum of three monitors going at any one time. They are focused on markets in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
SAM1 ; don’t expect it to cocntinue indefinitely. Once I have full recovery then back to old grindstone…
Looking at the video it appears that what some think was an explosion was probably an electrical short explosion. You can barely see the second car take out a CAT pole and then the flash.
Lots to wonder about, for sure. I haven’t seen wreck pictures that bad since the Colonial. As bad as it is, it does seem that a lot of the car bodies did seem to fair pretty well. 100+ mph train has a lot of energy that has to go somewhere in a wreck. I’m not sure there are there are always good solutions for managing that much energy in such a short time.
Agree the Colonial certainly does compare. It appears the train went from ~ 120 MPH speed to stop in about a train length ? And to use an old saw. The passengers were subject to the sudden stop at the next seat or worse at the front of each car ?
Reports are now that the train was going at least 119 mph in a 49 mph zone on a sharp curve. Also it had been under the Spanish version of ATC/PTC, but that section ended at point earlier. Driver error.
Not sure, but they are don’t meet FRA standards (or at least haven’t been tested), so the NPCUs are needed. The new Talgos don’t need them, but I don’t know if they meet standards or are operating under the same waiver. IIRC greater rigidity in a crash was an advantage of Talgos, but I could be wrong…
There are mountains to the east and south of Santiago. It looks like the wall was made to prevent an overspeed into the neighborhood. One report states that the engineer called in before the accident and said that he was going too fast. We will have to wait for the full story.
Just now had the opportunity to get into this tread, and as far as I can see there seem to be a lot of doubts about it. I’ll start with some preliminaries.
This line, altough technically a high speed line, was built in ‘iberian’ gauge (1668 millimeters, versus the more usual 1435 mm of standrd gauge), but to be converted to standard gauge on a later date, as soon as the entire Madrid to Galicia HSL is ready ( presently the intermediate and most difficult section between Medina del Campo, near Valladolid and Ourense, where this section starts, is under construction). This particular section between the Junctions called ‘Bif. O coto da Torre’ (just North of Ourense) and ‘Bif A grandeira’ (South of Santiago de Compostela), despite the gauge, has sections of track in wich the top speed is 300 Kmhr, but due to the necessity of connecting it with the existing network, in the two aforementioned junctions there are speed restrictions, respectively 110 and 80 km/h.
In the section of track where the acident happened, the line is electrified at 25 Kv/50 Hz AC. However, in the Ourense side, there is a short section electrified at 3 Kv DC, wich is the standard main line electrification in Spain, a system that has American influences (first electrification done at this system used engines built by Alco and was most certainly inspired by GN/MIlw practice). The ‘tension cange’ is located at kilometre 3,4 (counting from Ourense) of the new line.
In terms of signalling system, the new line is equipped wit
One thing that has caught my attention in several European train wrecks is the break up of the rail cars. Compared to the Metro North wreck a few weeks ago(MN wreck was at a slower speed). I have to wonder if European rail authorities are going to start looking at the issue of what happens to how well the vehicle can protect passengers in a wreck. Then they see why American passenger equipment is built the way it is. During the period (1900-1920) when government regulators in the US were addressing the large number of fatalities in train wrecks most European countries were dealing with the effects on society of WWI. Rgds IGN