Spain - railway services, ticketing and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

Some further information here: http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/media/1374703338_483146.html and here: http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/26/media/1374872840_505323.html and on the specifics of the signalling system here: http://comofuncionanlostrenes.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/instalaciones-de-seguridad-asfa-digital.html?m=1  In the case of the latter link it is interesting to read the posts well down the document.

[eightf48544]

This seems to be a boundary conditon anomoly.

I thought the point of ERTMS^▸ (European Rail Traffic Management System.) level 2 and above is that it eliminates lineside signals giving the train a max speed for any point on the line, with the ability to slow/stop the train if the authorised speed is exceeded. Thus I would have expected that either the ERTMS would have given a slow speed coming off the new line or the old system to have a restricted aspect signal  before the bend which presumably the driver could overule. Similar to approach control at junctions as used in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

We have had problems with curves Morpeth comes to mind.

The lessons to be learnt is that boundary conditons must be carefully thought through to avoid such anomoies a lesson for the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) resignallers.

There was apprently a SPAD^▸ (Signal Passed At Danger) on the first siganl out of Marylebone which is ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) fitted. Unfortunately ATP requires to pass two signals before it knows where it is. 

[Chris from Nailsea]

A further update, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Spain train driver Garzon questioned by judge


Francisco Jose Garzon Amo was taken to the courthouse from a police station

The driver of a train that crashed near the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, killing 79 people, has been questioned by a judge.

Francisco Jose Garzon Amo was detained on suspicion of reckless homicide after the accident. He is suspected of driving too fast on a bend.

Spanish media says Mr Garzon has been charged but allowed to leave the court. The judge has retained his passport, according to reports.

The investigation is still believed to be open and the driver will have to face trial at a later date. He will have to report to the judge once a week.

Reports say the train was travelling at more than double the speed limit at the time of the crash.

Mr Garzon, 52, was pictured being escorted away from the wreckage by police, blood pouring from a head injury. He left hospital on Saturday and was immediately taken to the central police station in Santiago. He had refused to make a statement or answer questions until now.

Spanish newspaper El Pais said Mr Garzon had admitted to "recklessness" in court. The judge reportedly said Mr Garzon was free to leave the court but was banned from driving trains.

On Sunday, an eyewitness to the disaster told the BBC that he had overheard the driver admitting minutes after the crash that he had been going too fast. Evaristo Iglesias, a resident of Santiago de Compostela, said he heard the driver saying he tried to slow down but "it was too late". Mr Iglesias said the driver, who was shocked and dazed, was repeatedly "saying he wanted to die" rather than see the damage at the scene.

Sunday's court hearing was closed but the judge was expected to decide whether to remand the driver as an official suspect, release him on bail, or free him without charge.

At least 130 people were injured in the accident. It emerged that one of them - identified as an American woman - died on Sunday. Dozens more remain in a critical condition.

All eight carriages of the train - packed with more than 200 passengers - careered off the tracks into a concrete wall as they sped around the curve on the express route between Madrid and the port city of Ferrol on the Galician coast. Leaking diesel burst into flames in some of the carriages.

The train's data recording "black box" is with the judge in charge of the investigation. Officials have so far not said how fast the train was going when it derailed.

Gonzalo Ferre, president of Spanish rail network administrator Adif, said the driver should have started slowing the train 4km (2.5 miles) before the spot where the accident happened.

The president of Spanish train operator Renfe, Julio Gomez Pomar, has said the train had no technical problems. He said the driver had 30 years' experience with the company and had been operating trains on the line for more than a year.

People from several nationalities were among the injured, including five US citizens and one Briton. Two Americans were among the dead.

The crash was one of the worst rail disasters in Spanish history.

[James]

Gosh, not good, my prayers go out to all the people who were injured and killed.
Hopefully the authorities get to the bottom of this serious crash, as spain is such a nice country. Get well soon folks .

[TonyK]

No mention yet of the presence of the second driver in the cab. He had apparently driven the first half of the route, and also survived the crash.His evidence will be invaluable in establishing the chain of events.

[DidcotPunter]

I'm not sure if this has already been referenced but this article from the IRJ confirms that (a) the ETCS^▸ (European Train Control System) controlled section of the line ends 4km from the accident site and (b) the Alvira type train involved in the accident are not (as yet) able to use ETCS on that section of the line. 

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/europe/etcs-not-operable-on-santiago-crash-train.html

Therefore the train was under full manual control for the complete journey from Ourense to Santiago under the Spanish ASFA system which, like our AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System), monitors acknowledgement of the lineside signals but (unlike TPWS^▸ (Train Protection and Warning System)) does not provide any form of speed supervision. So, other than the driver's vigilance, which appears to be lacking in this unfortunate accident, there was no other system in place to prevent trains entering the curve at excessive speed.

As the article states, even trains which are equipped with ETCS are only advised that automated supervision is disabled at the ETCS/ASFA transition point, there is nothing other than the driver's route knowledge to enforce braking prior to the curve.  As we found out at Morpeth on a number of occasions, this appears to be an accident waiting to happen.

[stuving]

That is rather surprising, if true - certainly it contradicts some other sources in its details. I assume this still counts as a journalistic source, even if it is of the more reliable technical kind. We will just have to wait for more definitive information, I guess.

On the other hand it does confirm what I was finding already, that saying a line or a train is equipped with system x does not tell you whether and how it is used.

[DidcotPunter]

Indeed.  AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System) did not prevent the Southall accident (it was isolated on the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)) and ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) didn't prevent the Ladbroke Grove one (fitted and operational on the HST, not fitted to the class 165 Thames Turbo unit involved).

[ChrisB]

No mention yet of the presence of the second driver in the cab.

The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) reported he wasn't in the cab, but sat in one of the coaches.

[eightf48544]

Indeed.  AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System) did not prevent the Southall accident (it was isolated on the HST^▸ (High Speed Train)) and ATP^▸ (Automatic Train Protection) didn't prevent the Ladbroke Grove one (fitted and operational on the HST, not fitted to the class 165 Thames Turbo unit involved).

Don't forget that at Southall the ATP was also out of use as well.

As stuving puts it.

On the other hand it does confirm what I was finding already, that saying a line or a train is equipped with system x does not tell you whether and how it is used.

This crash should make European Railway authorites more aware of the the problems of boundary conditions between old and new sytems and increasingly between software versions of similar systems. Just look at the problems the Belgians and Dutch have had around the boundary point on the High Speed line with different software versions of ERTMS^▸ (European Rail Traffic Management System.) 2 on either side of the border.

Thi will start to become a problem in this country as ERTMS evolves how will Cambrian ERTMS Fitted 158s interface with what will undoubtably be a more modern version when installed between Shrewsbury and Birmingham?

It's not the same as an AWS TPWS^▸ (Train Protection and Warning System) fitted unit working on a line without AWS or TPWS if a line is Level 2 and above with no linside signals then all stock using the line must be able to interface with the system whatever software version is in use.

Do you stick with the software version installed on the first line or do you take what are hopefully safety/performance advances in later software version for the next instalaltion? So do you upgrade the first system to new the version or do you upgrade the trains to read both (multiple?) versions (the SNCB/NS problem) or do you end up with increasing isolated train fleets confined to one route?   

You can liken it to having trains equipped with Windows 3, XP, Vista, 7 and 8 at the same time.

Not an easy problem.

[broadgage]

In the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) speed limits are strictly enforced with drivers at risk of dismissal for all but the most trivial breaches.
This is however fairly recent, I can remember trains routinely exceeding speed limits, was there not a "140 club" years ago of those HST^▸ (High Speed Train) drivers who had reached 140 MPH.

I'm not sure that's true Broadgage.  I was around when HST's came in on the Western region in1976, and I recall they all had speed limiters either from the outset of public service runs or very soon after which prevented them doing more than about 130 mph.  It maybe that early driver training runs etc pre-dated the speed limiters. 

I do remember doing 110 mph behind a Class 50 between Didcot and Reading: unlike Class 47's, which ran out of power above about 80-85 mph, Class 50's could really go!

AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know) the HSTs did not have speed limiters originaly, they were fitted later due to concerns about "over enthuisiasm"

[bobm]

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) are reporting the train driver was on the phone to members of railway staff at the time of the derailment.

[stuving]

... and French TV that he was looking at a plan or map. Not that these are exclusive.

I wonder where these reports come from. Some are attributed to "tribunal", so does that mean this kind of evidence is in effect read into a public record as they go along? Otherwise, one would expect the judge-led investigation to be strictly confidential - in theory.

[onthecushions]

It struck me that the Eastern approach to Reading (down main) also had a 125mph limit into (old) platform 4, limit 50mph.

IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) this was in recent years always approach controlled, usually with single yellow aspect and time in section. I believe that the criterion was line speed above 75mph and more than 2/3 speed reduction.

The Morpeth curve already mentioned seems to have had 5 smashes, three of which were down to over-speeding, (in 1969, 1984 and 1994). At least one had a distracted driver.

Sadness

OTC

[Chris from Nailsea]

More details, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Spain train driver 'on phone' at time of deadly crash

The train driver in last week's crash in Spain was talking on the phone when it derailed, investigators say.

The train was travelling at 153km/h (95mph) at the time, investigators at the Court of Justice of Galicia said.

Francisco Jose Garzon Amo was speaking to members of staff at the state-owned railway company, Renfe, they added.

Crash investigators had opened the train's "black-box" data recorder to find the cause of the crash, which left 79 people dead.

Moments before the accident the train was travelling at a speed of 192km/h (119mph), the court said in a statement.

Investigators say the brakes were activated shortly before the crash. The speed limit on the sharp bend where the train derailed was set at 80km/h (49mph).

"Minutes before the train came off the tracks he received a call on his work phone to get indications on the route he had to take to get to Ferrol. From the content of the conversation and background noise it seems that the driver consulted a map or paper document," a court statement said.

Mr Garzon is suspected of reckless homicide, but he has not yet been formally charged. He was released from custody in Santiago de Compostela, where the crash occurred, on Sunday but remains under court supervision. He must appear before a court once a week and was not allowed to leave Spain without permission. His passport has been surrendered to the judge and his licence to drive a train has been suspended.

Under Spanish law, his legal status is that he is suspected of being involved in 79 counts of reckless homicide but has not been formally charged. But officials said he had admitted negligence by being careless when rounding a bend too fast.

All eight carriages of the train careered off the tracks into a concrete wall as they sped around the curve on the express route between Madrid and the port city of Ferrol on the Galician coast.