Turners Siding Railway Accident
In the railway accident of Turners Siding was on November 5, 2018 near Turners Siding in the region Pilbara , Western Australia an extremely long and heavy freight train deliberately placed derailed after he was out of control.
Starting position
The Newman – Port Hedland railway in Western Australia is owned by the mining company BHP Billiton . It is single-track and runs from inland mainly with a gradient towards the coast. Only block trains run on the route to transport iron ore from the open pit for loading in the port of Port Hedland on the Indian Ocean . The trains are very long and are carried in multiple units with diesel locomotives . The operation of the line is remote-controlled from Perth , about 1500 km from the accident site.
The trains are equipped with several brakes: a brake in the locomotive, hand brakes on each car and a continuous air pressure brake and another electronically controlled brake, automatic train protection system (ATP).
The train with the number M 02712 was a loaded ore train. It consisted of 268 cars and four locomotives and was on its way to the port.
the accident
The engine driver, who was on the front engine, found around 3:39 a.m. that communication was no longer working at the end of the train. That also triggered a brake. The train stopped about 210 km from Port Headland. The engine driver informed the train control center, which isolated the train from the rest of the traffic using signals, and sent technicians to the broken train. In addition - because of the gradient - the hand brakes on the train had to be pulled. At the direction of the headquarters, the driver got out shortly before 4:00 a.m. Different information is available about whether he previously actuated the parking brake correctly. This should only have an effect on the locomotive, not on the rest of the train. The engine driver began walking down the train, putting the handbrake on each car. He assumed that the technicians would do the same, starting from the end of the train. He also found that the control cable for the brake between the 10th and 11th cars was damaged. This meant that the air pressure brake behind the 10th car was no longer effective.
Since the route was now blocked for other trains, the empty train with the number M 02727, which was traveling in the opposite direction , came to a halt at the nearby Garden South junction . The alarmed technicians mistook the two trains and put the hand brakes on the wagons on the empty train. They also reported to the control center that they were now applying the brakes.
At about 4:40 a.m., the engine driver was on the 73rd car and at a considerable distance from his locomotive, the brakes of the electronic braking system, which had brought the train to a stop and were programmed accordingly, released. With that the train started moving. The engine driver alerted the control center. The engine driver of the empty train saw the runaway train at the crossing point with about 50 km / h and screeching brakes past his train and also notified the control center. This in turn alerted all other locomotive drivers on the line, whose trains were in front of the ghost train, so that they stopped their trains, left and went as far away from the track as possible. The escaped train reached a speed of up to 160 km / h on the downhill slope.
The operational control in Perth deliberately derailed the train around 5:30 a.m. after 92 km in a deserted area . Due to the inclines in between, he still had a speed of 144 km / h. Only the two leading locomotives and the first car and the last 22 carriages of the train remained on the track. The other vehicles derailed.
consequences
Nobody was injured. 245 cars, two locomotives and two kilometers of track were destroyed when the train derailed. The direct damage should amount to around 30 million euros , the daily loss of production around 36 million euros. How long the route would be interrupted could not be foreseen in November 2018. Shortly after the accident , the operator assumed that operations could be resumed after a week.
The BHP dismissed the train driver but finally had to consent to a settlement under labor law.
literature
- mr: 268-car train derailed in Australia . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 12/2018, p. 646.
Web links
- NN: BHP suspends WA rail operations after train travels 92km with no driver . In: The Guardian, November 6, 2018; accessed on December 10, 2018.
- Lisa Martin: Mangled wreckage of BHP runaway train revealed in video footage . In: The Guardian, November 7, 2018; accessed on December 10, 2018.
- NN: BHP train derailment: footage shows two-kilometer train crash in outback Australia - video . In: The Guardian, November 7, 2018; accessed on December 10, 2018.
- David Weber: BHP reaches settlement with driver sacked over iron ore train derailment in Pilbara. In: ABC News of February 25, 2019. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
- David Weber: Handbrakes applied to wrong BHP iron ore train before Pilbara runaway derailment, ATSB finds . In: ABC News, March 12, 2019. With reference to a preliminary investigation report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). Retrieved March 15, 2019.
- Calla Wahlquist: Driver of runaway train files unfair dismissal claim against BHP . In: The Guardian, January 11, 2019. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
Individual evidence
- ↑ mr: 268-car train .
- ↑ NN: BHP train derailment .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ mr: 268-car train ; NN: BHP train derailment .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ Wahlquist: Driver of runaway train .
- ↑ Martin: Mangled wreckage .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
- ↑ mr: 268-car train .
- ↑ Martin: Mangled wreckage .
- ↑ mr: 268-car train .
- ^ NN: BHP suspends .
- ^ Weber: BHP reaches settlement
- ↑ Weber: Handbrakes applied .
Coordinates: 21 ° 18 ′ 10.9 ″ S , 118 ° 51 ′ 39.8 ″ E