Hardly had I pointed
up the parallel between last week’s derailment near Santiago de Compostela,
and the Southall
crash in 1997 – the attempts in both cases to blame the driver and hope
that the press doesn’t look too closely at other issues – than the black box
recorders were examined and there was another convenient leak to the media,
telling that Francisco José Garzón was
on the phone.
Yes, when the train
derailed, the
driver was on the phone. The conclusion was straightforward: it was Him Wot
Done It. But, as with all the other attempts to tell the press to “look over there”, this line did not hold
for long before the black and white characterisation of events took on more of
those inconvenient shades of grey. Someone
from train operator Renfe made the call.
But calling the driver on his work mobile is restricted to
emergencies. So the hunt was on for the culprit. Was it a controller? A
signaller? To save them all a lot of fuss, Garzón came
forward and explained that it was neither: the train’s guard (conductor or
supervisor if you prefer) had made the call. Antonio Martín then explained that
he was passing a request for the station stop at Pontedeume.
He wanted to be able to detrain a family group more easily,
by having the train use the platform road nearest the station building. Given
that the area – according
to infrastructure operator Adif’s network statement – uses automatic block
signalling, that would have required Garzón to contact Control. Hopefully,
there was no suggestion that he did it from the cab while on the move.
Meanwhile, the rest of the information from the black box
recorders – which clearly use the airline standard of taking both data and
voice recordings – was being sidelined, which may be convenient for some
participants, but was as revealing as the phone call from the guard. For
starters, Garzón had applied the brakes when he realised where he was, and
wiped 40km/h off the train’s speed.
So when the derailment came, it
was doing 153km/h (95mph), which, although it would have been momentarily
uncomfortable for the passengers, should not have resulted in disaster – if it
had not been for those diesel generator cars tipping over, dragging everything
else off the track and into the concrete retaining wall. And it’s not just my
opinion, but also that of a professor of
physics.
Quirantes Arturo Sierra is a physics professor at the
University of Granada. He
has explained that, because of its high centre of gravity, “the diesel generator van went off the road,
dragging the rest of the cars”. Otherwise the train would probably not have
derailed. So while efforts continue to blame Francisco José Garzón, don’t be surprised if Renfe
quietly take the 730 series trains out of service.
There is more to come. And
it would help the authorities if they came clean.
4 comments:
I thought it was significant, the fact that the diesel generator vans tipped over first.
Question, Tim - does this crash have any lessons to be learned for the bi-mode IEPs that the DaFT have ordered that the train operators don't want.
That depends on where the diesel engines are located (thought Bi-Mode IEP had them under the floor). If the diesel engines are in power cars like the IC125, maybe it does, but the UK doesn't do speed limit transitions like the one where the derailment happened.
The Spanish problem is that they're trying to connect everywhere to the capital. If Madrid to Ferrol were to be run by loco-hauled stock, you'd need four locos.
The concept of the 730 is ingenious, and when it was unveiled I thought it pretty neat. But one look at what happened in that accident and I wondered if it was a concept too far.
The alternatives are either electrify all the lines or attach a loco when you come off the electrics.
Virgin used to attach locos to the (electric) Pendolinos on the North Wales Coast Line, but it's a really bad option because you have to stop the train while you attach the loco.
I think the IEP hybrids are DEMUs with under-floor engines which use the same electric motors all the time, just powered from the pantograph when there is a catenary to collect from, and from the diesel on non-electrified lines.
Is there a good reason why the 730 uses a generator car rather than underfloor engines?
Is it just that it's a retrofit, tacking a generator car onto an existing electric train, rather than designing the engines in as the IEP has?
There would be no room for engines under the Talgo coaches - they're very low to the track - and structurally it would be very challenging.
It is also a retrofit, of course, and rather than having power head and coaches entirely separate, as the 130 has, the generator car has both a conventional bogie, and "leans" on a Talgo steering axle as it is articulated onto the adjacent coach.
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