Granville Railway Accident
When Granville rail disaster one brought entgleisender train on 18 January 1977 in Granville , a district of Parramatta , Australia , a bridge to collapse. 83 people were killed in this accident and 210 others were injured. It was the most momentous railway accident and the worst accident in peacetime in the history of Australia .
Starting position
The railway station of Granville is located at km 21.4 to the west from Sydney Central Station, located on the Trans-Australian Railway .
The accident occurred in the morning rush hour . The New South Wales Public Transport Commission suburban train involved was very busy. He had left Mount Victoria at 6:09 a.m. for Sydney Central Station.
the accident
Against 8:10, the train reached the station of Granville. At the entrance to the station, the locomotive derailed because the gauge was widened. As was later determined, the maintenance of the superstructure had been neglected. The locomotive derailed when it was under a road bridge, a reinforced concrete structure . Several of the bridge piers were torn away or damaged. The derailment of the locomotive also meant that the following passenger cars also derailed. The locomotive and the first two cars still slipped under the bridge. The first car detached itself from the train formation and was slit open by a mast on the railway line . 8 people died. The following cars derailed to a halt, the rear section of the third and the front section of the fourth car under the damaged bridge, which - stripped of its supports - collapsed seconds later. Cars were torn into the depths and numerous travelers in the cars that had come to a halt under the bridge were crushed by the rubble of the bridge. The two engine drivers survived. All of the car drivers who were torn down survived.
consequences
Some of the injured, whose extremities were trapped by debris, died of crushed kidney immediately after the debris was lifted . In the process, large amounts of defective proteins from the injury are concentrated in the body. This resulted in a correspondingly changed procedure for such salvage.
The maintenance of the superstructure was greatly improved.
The road bridge was rebuilt without central supports; the central supports of other bridges of the same construction have been reinforced. A commemorative plaque was placed on the road bridge in 2007 to honor the rescuers at the scene of the accident.
The Granville Memorial Trust was created for the families of the victims . He organizes a memorial service and a memorial march to the bridge on every anniversary . There a rose is dropped on the tracks for each of the dead . The trust also takes care of questions of safety in railway operations.
An Australian television feature film from 1998, The Day of the Roses , deals with the investigation of the accident by the Coroner's Court of New South Wales , a process that took two years to complete.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Granville Historical Society: Medical Review Seminar Lidcombe Hospital −15 February 1977 . 2007.
- ↑ NN: Granville memorial organizers forced to beg . In: The Daily Telegraph v. January 15, 2007.
- ^ Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Granville victims remembered v. January 18, 2007.
Coordinates: 33 ° 49 ′ 53.7 ″ S , 151 ° 0 ′ 36.4 ″ E