The train crash in China sounds creepily familiar.
Thirty-nine people died when a train ran into the back of another which had stalled on a viaduct near Wenzhou after lightning cut its power supply.
The system “failed to turn the green light into red”, said An Lusheng, head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau.
We’ve been here before, haven’t we?
Early reports indicate it was slowing for signals when the 0614 from Poole, travelling from Bournemouth due to track problems, ran into the back of it.
Experts have said this train would have been travelling at about 40mph.
Shortly afterwards an empty train leaving Clapham junction hit the wreckage.
British Rail has said initial reports indicate the crash was caused by signalling failures.
There’s nothing new under the sun, it seems. Clapham was caused by an engineer making a mistake, causing the signal in rear of the 0614 to clear. I wonder what the root cause of the similar accident in China will be? There is much noise about corruption going on…
Yes there’s definitely something wrong there. Hold on, there can’t be it’s state owned !
Indeed so. So was BR at the time of Clapham.
I remember Clapham well and recognisised the culture of excessive overtime and working weeks on end without a rest day, it was the norm on BR and people like me who didn’t do it were regarded as something of an oddity, a nuisance even. After the event of course stable doors were rapidly bolted but it’s only in the last decade or so that proper rest periods have been strictly enforced, something that’s definitely changed for the better since privatisation.
The big difference, and an important one, is if the Chinese find someone to pin it on (s)he will get a lead injection, at their cost. Here they just move on to the next job and forget about it.
Reports suggest a lightning-strike screwed the signalling system …..
In which case, it would be a wrong-side failure. Signalling systems are designed to fail-safe – i.e. revert to a red signal or no signal, which is the same thing as far as the driver is concerned. I’m assuming the same basic principles apply in China as they do here, of course.
Correct.
What THEN happened is unclear, and as usual the Chinese authorities have screwed-up by covering up.
See HERE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8668962/Grandpa-Wen-left-helpless-as-internet-drives-wave-of-unrest-through-China.html