terrible crash in Greece, multiple fatalities

Reminds me of the 2008 Metrolink crash near Chatsworth.

Someone's head is going to roll.

the death toll has gone up

Protests have erupted in Greece due to this incident.  Nearly 4 dozen deceased and more in the hospital.  this is truly terrible.

According to some things that have been reported a Station master in charge settings routes has been arrested and whoever is in charges of railways for the country ( I can't remember the title) has resigned.

There were reports of an overhead line at 25,000 volts failing elsewhere and falling on top of a different train.  Apparently that may have scrambled signaling system or simply distracted the man who lines up the routes enough to cause the crash.  Supposedly the country has put off investments in rail safety way more than other European nations or the US.

No word that I saw as to what caused the fires that swept through the first couple coaches but I would guess they went up in the air and hit the catenary while it was live.   

I will offer up some more prayers today for everyone involved.

@jhz563 posted:

Supposedly the country has put off investments in rail safety way more than other European nations or the US.

It began when the country decided to privatize the railroads.   Same old tragic story.

John

More information is coming out, shows the dangers of only verbal/cell phone orders to run a system. They should have kept the old timetable and train order practices.

Engineer told to ignore red signal

Unbelievable.

There is a video of a cab ride on this line on YouTube from Nov. 2017. In this video the signals are either not working or are red, and the train just runs through them, not even slowing. The track appears to be in very good condition and the train is running at 160 Kph much of the time. However, everything else about the railroad appears to be in a deteriorated condition.  Vegetation right up the the cars, abandon cars on unused sidings, etc. it appeared that all the crossings used flagman, no automatic crossing protection. During the more that one hour cab ride several trains were passed, one was a freight. The train stopped at many stations, but most had no one waiting to ride. There was nothing in the video that indicated how the trains were being controlled. There were several times the train diverged onto a different route and the train often took a siding at stations, but no indication how the switches were controlled.  There were a number of houses/buildings built right up agains the track.  There could have been used as towers, but nothing to indicate for sure. This was a vast system with two or four main tracks, but appears to have fallen into disrepair.

The past few train wrecks both in the US and Greece have been horrific. Our prayers go out to all of the many First Responders, the medics, doctors, Families who have lost there precious loved ones, and the train companies personnel, it’s unimaginable the damages that’s so devastating…. We pray for all of the folks involved in train wrecks and earth quakes, and snow storms, flooding, hopefully clean up will begin soon and we can get back to some kind of normal. God Bless.

At least 57 now.  And protests still happening although news is slowing down.