What are the odds of two high speed deadly collisions in a single year in a single country? I’m not convinced this is an infrastructure issue, or even a training issue, it could be the result of a cyber attack. I hope they are taking that possibility seriously.
At least the causes were very different. The Adamuz accident took place because of a rail breaking. And it broke in a way that would be difficult to cause using explosives or tools, but rather simply because of not having been checked often enough.
This one was the LZB train protection system’s computers crashing, which caused 8 trains to be stopped by the protection system. The train dispatcher then did not follow the procedure for ordering the trains to return running: They were supposed to drive their first couple of kilometres with a reduced speed, but they were ordered to proceed at full speed. 7 did, 1 stayed still. And then one of the seven moving trains collided at a very high speed with the one that was standing.
The LZB computers crashing is apparently a relatively common occurrence, and happens in the home country of the LZB system, Germany, as well. It could have been a “foreign entity” (heh, guess which one), but actually there’s good reason to believe it was a “regular” software mishap. However, what is sure is that the resulting disaster took place because of dispatcher error, and that cannot have been because of any foreign influence.
Apparently the crashing driver blindly followed the order of retaking full speed with no regards to a red light that should have been denoting an occupied track, so either two humans failed in a row or the protocols are severly flawed. Investigations must clarify this.
Somebody elsewhere in Internet had a theory that the driver might have accelerated after seeing a green pre-signal. The Iryo had stopped right in front of the signal, so the next block was free of trains and its signal would therefore show green. And that means, so does the pre-signal on the previous block.
There is nothing super spectacular against passing a red signal with oral instructions from the dispatcher. The instruction typically has to include the identifying number of that specific signal, so you need a separate instruction for each red signal that you pass. This also includes a reduced speed limit, typically around 40 km/h. But, in some places in Spain, it might be as high as 100 km/h. If that was the case here (there’s no proof it was!), then the driver has had some maybe two kilometres of time to accelerate from 100 km/h until the crash site. That translates to maybe one minute of full-power acceleration from 100 km/h. If the assumption of 100 km/h limit when passing red lights with oral instructions is correct, then the train driver may have followed the procedure completely correctly. Of course, since the first wagon of that train has pretty much disappeared, you cannot ask the driver many questions. You can see 7 wagons of the 8-wagon-long train in the El Pais photos but the 8th wagon is nowhere to be seen. Except that in the last wagon of the Iryo train, you can see a little bit of the letter V from the AVE logo on the AVE train, so apparently the AVE train’s first wagon has penetrated the full length of the Iryo train’s last wagon and is simply hiding inside the red walls of the Iryo train.
The crash took place after a curve to the right. In a video made from a train’s driver cabin some years ago, it took 7 seconds from the spot where the accident site becomes visible to the train passing that site. A train doesn’t slow down very much in 7 seconds.
Exactly. What’s the point of reporting this outside of Spain, other than generating clicks and engagement? I think it’s irresponsible, makes people wary of travelling by train. Meanwhile more people die on the Spanish roads every 2 weeks (daily in the US).
What are the odds of two high speed deadly collisions in a single year in a single country? I’m not convinced this is an infrastructure issue, or even a training issue, it could be the result of a cyber attack. I hope they are taking that possibility seriously.
It’s the third major train accident in a year if you include the train derailment that happened two days after the Adamuz disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Gelida_train_derailment
At least the causes were very different. The Adamuz accident took place because of a rail breaking. And it broke in a way that would be difficult to cause using explosives or tools, but rather simply because of not having been checked often enough.
This one was the LZB train protection system’s computers crashing, which caused 8 trains to be stopped by the protection system. The train dispatcher then did not follow the procedure for ordering the trains to return running: They were supposed to drive their first couple of kilometres with a reduced speed, but they were ordered to proceed at full speed. 7 did, 1 stayed still. And then one of the seven moving trains collided at a very high speed with the one that was standing. The LZB computers crashing is apparently a relatively common occurrence, and happens in the home country of the LZB system, Germany, as well. It could have been a “foreign entity” (heh, guess which one), but actually there’s good reason to believe it was a “regular” software mishap. However, what is sure is that the resulting disaster took place because of dispatcher error, and that cannot have been because of any foreign influence.
Apparently the crashing driver blindly followed the order of retaking full speed with no regards to a red light that should have been denoting an occupied track, so either two humans failed in a row or the protocols are severly flawed. Investigations must clarify this.
Somebody elsewhere in Internet had a theory that the driver might have accelerated after seeing a green pre-signal. The Iryo had stopped right in front of the signal, so the next block was free of trains and its signal would therefore show green. And that means, so does the pre-signal on the previous block.
There is nothing super spectacular against passing a red signal with oral instructions from the dispatcher. The instruction typically has to include the identifying number of that specific signal, so you need a separate instruction for each red signal that you pass. This also includes a reduced speed limit, typically around 40 km/h. But, in some places in Spain, it might be as high as 100 km/h. If that was the case here (there’s no proof it was!), then the driver has had some maybe two kilometres of time to accelerate from 100 km/h until the crash site. That translates to maybe one minute of full-power acceleration from 100 km/h. If the assumption of 100 km/h limit when passing red lights with oral instructions is correct, then the train driver may have followed the procedure completely correctly. Of course, since the first wagon of that train has pretty much disappeared, you cannot ask the driver many questions. You can see 7 wagons of the 8-wagon-long train in the El Pais photos but the 8th wagon is nowhere to be seen. Except that in the last wagon of the Iryo train, you can see a little bit of the letter V from the AVE logo on the AVE train, so apparently the AVE train’s first wagon has penetrated the full length of the Iryo train’s last wagon and is simply hiding inside the red walls of the Iryo train.
The crash took place after a curve to the right. In a video made from a train’s driver cabin some years ago, it took 7 seconds from the spot where the accident site becomes visible to the train passing that site. A train doesn’t slow down very much in 7 seconds.
Low, but not zero. Failures happen, and disaster news gets clicks, so it gets reported on more widely.
Funny enough, I was writing about that yesterday.
https://lemmy.world/post/53666604
Exactly. What’s the point of reporting this outside of Spain, other than generating clicks and engagement? I think it’s irresponsible, makes people wary of travelling by train. Meanwhile more people die on the Spanish roads every 2 weeks (daily in the US).
https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/spain-road-safety.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
You might really like my post from yesterday.
https://lemmy.world/post/53666604
I really did like it! Thanks for bringing it up, the more people read it, the better.
yeah I wouldn’t put it past the fsb one bit to create this chaos