Chinchilla railway accident

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Sister locomotive to the locomotive that pulled the TALGO ( RENFE class 354 ).
Sister locomotive to the locomotive that pulled the freight train ( RENFE class 333 ).

In the railway accident in Chinchilla on June 3, 2003, came Talgo 4 and a freight train of RENFE southeast of Chinchilla de Monte Aragon , Albacete province , Spain , on a single-track stretch head-on. 19 people died.

Starting position

Infrastructure

East of the station Chinchilla , the forks of Madrid next route into a branch of Murcia and Cartagena and a second branch after Alicante . The Albacete – Murcia railway line is not electrified and only single-track beyond the junction. The safety of trains was carried here by telephone Zugmeldebetrieb (then to 44% of the routes common in Spain) and there is no train control , so no emergency brakes if a train enters a route section is traveled already by another train. At that time there was no mobile telephone connection to the locomotive staff, the radio connection was disturbed and did not work.

traffic

A freight train 83407 was on the Albacete – Murcia route, coming from Murcia, in a northerly direction. It was pulled by the 333,304 diesel locomotive, which was only put into service in 2002. It carried 28 freight cars , including tank cars for the transport of sulfuric acid .

The Talgo 226 drove south from Madrid Atocha (from 19:05) to Cartagena. He drove two 1st class cars  that ran directly behind the locomotive, a buffet car and five 2nd class cars. The train was pulled by the diesel locomotive 354.007-7 “ Virgen de Begoña ”. Only 82 people were on the train - including the staff - three men also manned the locomotive. At around 9:35 p.m. the train stopped at Chinchilla station .

the accident

The 37-year-old dispatcher at Chinchilla station , who had been on duty here for six years, set the station's exit signal to "Free travel". He had forgotten that the freight train was still on the line, or he acted negligently and relied on the fact that the engine driver was not allowed to drive off before the dispatcher also released the journey with the command staff. Whether the latter happened then remained controversial. In retrospect, the dispatcher denied having done that. The Talgo's engine driver assumed that the signal for entry into the single-track line to Murcia had been given, and drove off. When the dispatcher noticed that the train was moving, he tried to stop it. But the train crew no longer noticed him. The trains collided head-on at around 9:40 p.m., about 3 km from Chinchilla station . The freight train's locomotive slipped onto that of the Talgo. As a result of the collision, the diesel supply of the locomotives ignited and a fire broke out, which quickly spread to the Talgo's locomotive, the first two wagons , in which there were 27 people, and the locomotive of the freight train lying on it. Temperatures of up to 1,800 ° C are said to have developed during the fire . Both locomotives were destroyed by the impact.

consequences

Immediate consequences

19 people died, including the five who were on the locomotives. At least five people died in the impact, the others were burned. Most of the fatalities were in the two 1st class carriages at the head of the train. In addition, 46 people were injured. Chinchilla residents have been warned to stay indoors because of fear that sulfuric acid could leak. However, as it turned out during the salvage work, the corresponding wagons were empty and only contained relatively small residues of the acid. Identification of the dead proved difficult in some cases as the bodies were highly burned.

Prime Minister José María Aznar , Transport Minister Francisco Álvarez-Cascos and the President of the Castile-La Mancha Region , José Bono Martínez , visited the scene of the accident.

Indirect consequences

The safety system for train journeys on the line should be improved after the accident. A month before the accident, the contract to equip the line with an automatic train control system for 30 million euros was awarded because an accident had already occurred 40 kilometers further south in the city of Albacete in which two people died and 50 were also injured. The unions complained about the lack of investment in the rail network in the Murcia and Castile-La Mancha regions. The primitive train protection system, which did not provide any technical precautions to prevent two trains from entering the single-track line at the same time, was also criticized in public.

The dispatcher was sentenced in 2006 for grossly negligent manslaughter in 19 cases and grossly negligent bodily harm in 46 cases to 2 years imprisonment and a four-year professional ban . Since the court classified him as socially integrated, with no previous convictions , he was the father of two children, one of them with a disability, it assumed that imprisonment would be useless and sentenced him to probation . The former dispatcher was already working as a teacher at the time of the criminal trial . Even at the time of the criminal proceedings - contrary to what RENFE said immediately after the accident - there was still no automated train protection on the affected route.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Railway Atlas EU , p. 35.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Tono Calleja: Renfe atribuye a un error humano el choque de dos trenes que causa al menos 16 muertos . In: El País v. June 5, 2003 (accessed: February 15, 2016).
  3. ↑ Fern-Express - Nachrichten 3/2003 .
  4. ↑ Train number to: NN: Fern-Express - Nachrichten 3/2003 (accessed: February 14, 2016).
  5. ↑ NN: Listado centers (333).
  6. ↑ a b c d NN: Choque mortal de un talgo y un mercancías en Albacete . In: El Périodico Extremadura v. June 4, 2003 (accessed: February 14, 2016).
  7. ^ Train number to: Fern-Express - Nachrichten 3/2003 .
  8. ↑ a b c Austria Press Agency (APA): Train accident in Spain: 19 dead recovered so far . In: News [Austria] v. June 4, 2003 (accessed: February 14, 2016).
  9. ↑ NN: Listado centers (354).
  10. ↑ Calleja: Condenado .
  11. ↑ Calleja: Condenado .
  12. ↑ NN: Listado centers (354); NN: Listado tren (333).
  13. ^ NN: Identificadas .
  14. ↑ Calleja: Condenado .
  15. ^ NN: Identificadas .
  16. ↑ a b NN: Algo más que un error . In: El País v. June 8, 2006 (accessed: February 15, 2016).
  17. ↑ Calleja: Condenado .

Coordinates: 38 ° 53 ′ 17.9 "  N , 1 ° 41 ′ 39.5"  W.