Saltsjöbaden railway accident

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Accident site on January 17, 2013

The Saltsjöbaden railway accident happened on January 15, 2013 at around 2:30 a.m. on the Saltsjöbana in Saltsjöbaden , Sweden .

At 2:23 a.m., a complete set of trains started unintentionally and uncontrollably and left the depot in Neglinge towards Saltsjöbaden. There was only one 20-year-old woman on the train who was one of the train cleaning staff. After 1.5 km in Saltsjöbaden at 80 km / h, the train ran over the buffer stop at the end of the route, which was only designed for an impact at up to 40 km / h, and crashed into a house behind it. The woman on the train survived the impact with serious, non-life-threatening injuries. Nobody was injured in the house.

Events immediately after the accident

The woman was initially suspected of having stolen the train and was arrested on suspicion of property damage that was dangerous to the public. The suspicion was not confirmed. The route operator Arriva and the local transport association apologized to the person concerned for the hasty accusations. An inspection complaint was filed against the police spokesman for the fact that he was quickly and falsely assigned guilt.

The recovery lasted until January 28, 2013, amid concerns that the house could collapse if the train were recovered. The five apartments in the house were declared uninhabitable. The badly damaged front part of the train should be scrapped after the investigation. Rail traffic between Neglinge and Saltsjöbaden was discontinued and only resumed on September 16, 2013.

The woman on the train could not initially remember the accident after waking up. In April 2013, she gave her only interview about the accident.

An investigation of the accident by the state accident commission was arranged. The safety in the trains on Saltsjöbana was criticized immediately after the accident. They are not equipped with the ATC safety system, which would have automatically reduced the speed. According to the first information from SL, the driving key was also on the train.

Investigation report

The investigation report of the State Average Commission, which was entrusted with the investigation of the accident, appeared on May 5, 2014 and came to the following conclusions:

  • The train was parked on a track where the system that was supposed to prevent the brakes from freezing was not working. The bug had existed for about a month and was reported but not fixed. Among other things, it was unclear whether the operator Arriva or the regional traffic authority was responsible for the repair. There was no clear regulation for handling this situation. Instead, it was up to the shunter to decide at his own discretion.
  • The shunter was of the opinion that transferring the train to a track with a functioning system would have prevented the train from being cleaned in good time and made ready for the start of traffic in the morning. An assessment of the situation by his superiors did not take place. The shunter feared that the brakes could freeze due to the winter conditions and the non-functioning system, which is why he wanted to leave the brakes open. Since this was not intended, a method was used that would disable the backup. From the point of view of the shunter, however, there was no risk of the train unintentionally departing because several steps were necessary to accomplish this. This method was known, but not common. The shunter had insufficient knowledge of the risks.
  • The vehicle was left unattended in the final stages of cleaning. The mandatory precautions for this were not applied.
  • The reasons why the train started moving could not be clearly established. A cause only by the woman on the train from the cleaning staff z. B. in the context of their work seems unlikely. A possible technical error in the train could not be determined due to the severe damage. The investigation came to the conclusion that the train must have been in a setting in which the closing of the doors caused the departure. It was common practice to close the doors at the end of cleaning.
  • The points were set so that the train could drive out onto the line. The regulations are ambiguous with regard to the correct setting of the course in the situation in question.
  • The train ran unbraked until it hit. The woman on the train may initially have assumed that it was shunting the train. She tried to remove the key, which did not brake. There were other options for stopping the train, such as pressing the emergency brake or activating the safety device. It is understandable that these were not taken in this stressful situation. The journey took about two minutes. The woman sought protection in the passenger compartment.
  • The buffer stop couldn't stop the train. It was not judged to be inadequate because a stronger buffer stop might have protected the building, but this would have had more serious consequences for the person on the train.

Continue

Arriva and SL changed their regulations and work processes in such a way that such a disaster cannot repeat itself.

The operator Arriva had to pay a fine of 500,000 Swedish kronor (approx. 53,000 €). In addition, the injured cleaner received 20,000 crowns in damages from Arriva for the offense suffered by the false suspicion. Arriva has accepted the penalty order and will not appeal any further.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sweden: cleaning lady steals train and crashes into a house
  2. ↑ Tåg kraschade in i bostadshuset
  3. ↑ spiegel.de: Alleged train theft: Railway operator apologizes to 22-year-olds
  4. ↑ Maria Bjaring, Ulf Bungerfeldt: Olyckståget i Saltsjöbaden nu ute ur huset. sverigesradio.se, January 28, 2013, accessed February 9, 2017 (Swedish).
  5. ↑ Aftonbladet, SL och Arriva gör en pudel: Skulle inte ha anklagat städerskan , January 18, 2013 (Swedish)
  6. ↑ Dagens Nyheter, Tågkraschen: Polisen anmäld för tjänstefel , January 29, 2013 (Swedish)
  7. ↑ Svenska Dagbladet, Tåget i Saltsjöbaden är bärgat , January 28, 2013 (Swedish)
  8. ↑ Press release of the local transport association SL from September 13, 2013 (Swedish). Archived from the original on September 18, 2013 ; accessed on December 22, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Aftonbladet, Städerskan i förhör: "Minns inte kraschen" , 23. January 2013 (Swedish)
  10. ↑ Sekotidningen, Förstår att det kommer gå åt helvete , April 10, 2013 (Swedish)
  11. ↑ Svenska Dagbladet, Haverikommissions utreder olyckan , January 21, 2013 (Swedish)
  12. ↑ Nyckeln fanns i tåget. In: Dagens Nyheter. January 16, 2013, accessed December 22, 2015 (Swedish).
  13. ↑ Report of the Average Commission (PDF, Swedish, summary in English)
  14. ↑ Anders Gustafsson: Tågkraschen 2013 - städare får skadestånd. Mitt i Stockholm, February 9, 2017, accessed February 9, 2017 (Swedish).