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Any PTC in place over there?
willygee posted:Any PTC in place over there?
I read a couple different articles after I posted this one. The only details I could find was that the railway was "largely built in the colonial era and has not been upgraded." I take this to mean way side signals only, essentially late 1940's era tech. Sadly a quick google search reveals multiple fatality crashes similar to this one every couple years. One story from roughly 2005 was nearly identical circumstances, just a different location. Freight train is stationary near a passenger station and passenger train runs into it at speed because the driver missed the signal. Repeated loss of life and grievous injuries every 2 to 4 years that can totally be prevented with investment in better tech and training.
According to another source, 6 people were killed just last month when a freight train struck a passenger train.
They have a somewhat poor safety record in India and Pakistan, relative to train collisions. Many things other than the signal (or token) system surely contribute to it. I wonder what, if any, hours of service regulations they have, and what sort of process they have for training Drivers, and (this is a big one) how well do they monitor the daily performance of Drivers, with observations, testing, and event recorder analysis.
On Santa Fe, we were at one time the only major railroad doing routine, i.e., not just after an incident, analysis of event recorder data. Once we started it, Engineers disliked it, but generally concluded that there was no way to avoid becoming more rules compliant (if they wanted to remain employed), and our injuries and accidents dropped noticeably. There are indications that supervision and oversight of Drivers is lax in India and Pakistan.
Tom's comment reflects the validity that real safety programs do not involve just employing the admonishment of "be careful".
Just think how violent this would have been if there were the periodic roof crowd on each passenger car.
Third world, may be most of this floating rock in space. My experience just south of the border, a small, 1/2 of an island in the Caribbean Ocean/ Haiti. The work trucks that left the Catholic Church compound with the pre-fabricated houses had a lot of workers hanging on the roof of the truck, apparently an acceptable means of transportation. One worker, seriously cut on the metal, used for the houses, did receive very good medical care, but it took most of the day, to find a micro-surgeon. Part of the fix, was a couple of very good nurses, with our group, who knew the proper first aid care of a cut artery. Back to New York City, and then home to Western Pa, I often think about Haiti, a different world.
It looks like somebody left a switch in the wrong direction. A freight was parked on a "loop track". The engineer/driver may not have had time to slow down after being switched off the main line.
Sadly the death toll has risen to 24 
Loop track = siding?
Guess the signal system was not CTC/TWC?
Death toll climbs to 25 . Engineer given green signal, tracks misaligned, seems to be the cause.
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