Indian Train Crash

[Diasi]

Apparently 288 people have been killed when two trains collided head-on in India, trapping pasengers in the wreckage.

I suppose most of those on the roofs were lucky & got flung clear.

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[Michael Rolls]

terrible

[Scrumpy]

Very sad..  Obviously safer to travel on the roof..
 Looking at the pic there seems to be some form of seating on the roof..
... and do they pay.. ?
 I thought people just jumped on and hung on in there..

[Ashy]

From the early news reports this may have been a serious derailment compounded by one or two (not confirmed) trains running into the wreckage. This is near Calcutta in the east of India. No mention of what speed the trains may have been doing or what caused the initial derailment which could be anything track or train related. It's quite horrifying.

Many trains have been diverted or cancelled.

[Raven]

What a terrible thing to happen, were the signals not working for one of the trains to stop. That photo is makeing me feel quite sick.

[Ashy]

It is too early to say what happened but I can say that if a train approached the wreckage from the opposite direction, or in some cases the same direction, it would be a matter of luck and timing, whether the signals  could tell the approaching train to stop.

I note that these trains are designed to go at 81mph, in all seriousness I doubt if anyone rides on the roof.

[Ashy]

Update: A photograph published by CNN shows that this line, and the locomotives in use, are electric, looks like 25kV, so riding on the roof would be unwise.

[Diasi]

What a terrible thing to happen, were the signals not working for one of the trains to stop. That photo is makeing me feel quite sick.

It seems that one passenger train derailed after colliding with a goods train & second passenger train crashed into the derailed carriages & the cause, in my opinion, will be down to lack of proper track & rolling stock maintenance as the Indian Railways have probably the worst record in the world for rail disasters.

https://tinyurl.com/4w34znuj

I suppose it had to take prime place on our news with us having an ethnic Indian PM.

I'm surprised that Sunak hasn't announced 3 days of State mourning in the UK.

I bet it gets mentioned in Parliament on Monday, or on Wednesday at PMQ time.

[Alex]

Apparently 288 people have been killed when two trains collided head-on in India, trapping pasengers in the wreckage.

I suppose most of those on the roofs were lucky & got flung clear.

I got it.

[Ashy]

"A preliminary investigation conducted by Kharagpur railway division officials indicates the following sequence of events that occurred at the site of crash:

 1.   The Coromandel Express was heading towards Chennai on a southbound line at a speed of 128 km/h (81 mph) and was initially given signal to proceed on the main line it was coming on. However for unknown reason, the signal was then taken off* for the main line and the route was switched to a loop line that's adjacent to the main line.

2.    The Coromandel Express then hit the rear end of a stationary goods train which was on the loop line, causing the locomotive of the Coromandel Express to climb over the goods train wagon and also the derailment of its 22 coaches.

3.    In the meantime, Bengaluru-Howrah SF Express, which was heading towards Howrah on northbound line at a speed of 116 km/h, (73 mph) was passing the Coromandel Express in the opposite direction. It almost passed the other train except for the rear end.

4.    When the Coromandel Express derailed, 3 of its coaches hit the last 2 coaches of Bengaluru-Howrah SF Express and consequently these 5 coaches saw the maximum casualties."

Remains to be seen who, or what, did that. *Note: In British practice there would be a time delay of up to 6 minutes between replacing the first signal and altering the route.

[Diasi]

I got it.

Thank goodness someone did.

[GrannyMac]

Wherever it happened, its a huge number of casualties. Terrifying for everyone involved.

[Ashy]

Wherever it happened, its a huge number of casualties. Terrifying for everyone involved.

Absolutely awful.