Nasty train crash in Brussels.

Run_to_da_hills

Train crash just outside Brussels, 20 feared dead with some serious injuries. TGV canceled into Brussels as power lines are down on the same shared stretch of track. It also doesn't help in a small country where two different languages are spoken.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/7241701/Brussels-train-crash-at-least-20-people-killed.html

enda1

Yeah there was one about 8 years ago where it turned out there was misunderstanding between French and Dutch languages I think.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what the cause of this one was.
Weather over here (in Brussels) is pretty bad, wonder if that played a part somehow?

Cookie_Monster

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It also docent help in a small country where two different languages are spoken.

Sorry, what?

WTF does that have anything to do with anything

enda1

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Sorry, what?

WTF does that have anything to do with anything

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100215/wl_afp/belgiumrailaccident_20100215104830

In March 2001, two passenger trains crashed head-on at Pecrot to the east of Brussels, killing eight people including both drivers, and injuring 12.

That crash was blamed on human error, including the fact that staff at two Belgian stations did not speak a common language.

Its happened before, but too early to speculate whether this contributed to the cause this time or not.

FlameoftheWest

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It also doesn't help in a small country where two different languages are spoken.

What a truely bizarre comment!

Roryhy

(CNN) -- At least 18 people died and 55 were hurt when two trains collided in Belgium Monday, an official told CNN, adding that the numbers may not be final.
The mayor of Halle, the town where the collision took place, Dirk Pieters, earlier said 20 had died, Belgium's official news agency reported.
The trains collided head-on at 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 a.m. ET), the companies that run the Belgian railways and the train said in a statement.
The cause of the accident is not known, railway operator Infrabel and SNCB, the train operator, said.

Earlier Belgian government spokesman Bart Ouvry, said it was snowing at the time of the crash, but not an unusual amount.
People were thrown against the walls of the trains by the impact, said Emily Divinagracia, whose husband Stephan Riviere was a passenger on one of them, she told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/world/2010/02/15/intv.train.husband.passenger.cnn.640x360.jpg



Eurostar suspended high-speed train services between London, England and Brussels, Belgium, the company announced, and expected them to remain so for the rest of the day. London-to-Paris services are not affected, the company added, while there were delays on the service to Lille in northern France close to the border with Belgium.

TGV Europe announced that its Brussels-bound services were only going as far as Lille.
Eight people died in a train crash in Belgium in March 2001, media reports said at the time, calling it the worst rail accident in the country in 25 years. Investigators later suggested the two trains collided because of confusion between a French-speaking signalman and a Flemish-speaking one. Belgium is divided between speakers of the two languages.
Monday's crash is one of the deadliest train accidents in Europe since at least 41 people were killed in the Balkan nation of Montenegro in 2006. At least 180 additional passengers were injured when a train derailed and plunged down an embankment outside the capital Podgorica.


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47305000/gif/_47305377_belg_halle_train_crash2_466.gif[/IMG]

Run_to_da_hills

FlameoftheWest wrote: »

What a truely bizarre comment!

There is nothing bizarre about my comment.

"In March 2001, two passenger trains crashed head-on at Pecrot to the east of Brussels, killing eight people including both drivers, and injuring 12.

That crash was blamed on human error, including that staff at two Belgian stations did not speak a common language."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6807694/twenty-feared-dead-in-head-on-crash-near-brussels/

dowlingm

Obviously a lot of lessons need to be learned after this and I don't want to imply that this one is anywhere near top of this BUT -

The Belgian railway company should come under pressure at the level of graffiti evident on not only the crashed train, but even a completely different one I saw in another shot which had graffiti on the front end.

Run_to_da_hills

dowlingm wrote: »

Obviously a lot of lessons need to be learned after this and I don't want to imply that this one is anywhere near top of this BUT -

The Belgian railway company should come under pressure at the level of graffiti evident on not only the crashed train, but even a completely different one I saw in another shot which had graffiti on the front end.

I cannot see any relevance to graffiti with the crash other than it gives the impression of a run down railway service.

Cookie_Monster

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

There is nothing bizarre about my comment.

"In March 2001, two passenger trains crashed head-on at Pecrot to the east of Brussels, killing eight people including both drivers, and injuring 12.

That crash was blamed on human error, including that staff at two Belgian stations did not speak a common language."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6807694/twenty-feared-dead-in-head-on-crash-near-brussels/

there are plenty of countries where they speak two or more languages, Switzerland & Wales come immediatly to mind.

Just cos it happened once means nothing. Maybe we should automatically assume every crash in England is due to a landrover?

Plus they both more than likely spoke English as a common language, even if it wasn't their 1st language

Run_to_da_hills

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

there are plenty of countries where they speak two or more languages, Switzerland & Wales come immediately to mind.

Just cos it happened once means nothing. Maybe we should automatically assume every crash in England is due to a landrover?

Plus they both more than likely spoke English as a common language, even if it wasn't their 1st language

The subject was also brought up on 6/1 news as a possible cause as one train was providing a Flemish service.

Judgement Day

dowlingm wrote: »

Obviously a lot of lessons need to be learned after this and I don't want to imply that this one is anywhere near top of this BUT -

The Belgian railway company should come under pressure at the level of graffiti evident on not only the crashed train, but even a completely different one I saw in another shot which had graffiti on the front end.

I quite agree with you and while graffiti has nothing to do with this particular accident, it is a sign of sloppy railway housekeeping somewhere and one thing leads to another. As I have said on another thread I have been pursuing Dick Fearn about graffiti on the DART for a number of years as, in my opinion, it is only a matter of time before some of the 'artists' are killed or worse. But as usual it is probably just me being an alarmist and we should just bury our heads in the sand in the traditional manner.

A Dub in Glasgo

I fail to see the relevance of the language in this discussion.

What should be concentrating minds is why there was a head on collison in a multi-track layout also what looks to me like an up and over scenerio, what is the crash worthiness of Belgian rolling stock like?

Judgement Day

Well, given that the accident took place in a foreign country and is none of our business, and quite outside of posters here to control, I'm quite sure the Belgian Dept.of Transport will conduct a thorough investigation into the causes of the crash. The rolling stock appear to be quite modern and stood up reasonably well to the impact but from the looks of things the crash would appear to have been at some speed.

Cookie_Monster

The older brownish red stock doesn't look to have survived as well as the newer white stuff.

Tabnabs

Train drivers strike after Belgium crash
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 10:46

Belgian train drivers have gone on strike in protest at safety conditions after the collision of two rush hour trains which left at least 18 dead.

Investigators are still scouring the wreckage of the trains amid fears that more bodies could be found.

They are also sifting for clues on what caused one of the worst rail accidents in Belgium's history.
Advertisement

Some of the 100 injured from yesterday's high-speed disaster remain in serious conditions in hospital.

Many train drivers are now on strike, saying that poor working conditions contributed to the crash near the town of Halle, 15km southwest of Brussels.

One of the two drivers of the trains was among the dead.

The strike was spontaneously organised and rail unions are not involved.

Eurostar train services to and from London have been cancelled for a second day along with all Thalys International services to France, Germany and the Netherlands because of the wreckage and the strike.

Brabant provincial governor Lodewijk De Witte said yesterday that one of the trains had apparently failed to stop at a red light and hit the other at high speed.

The train line where the crash happened is fitted with a security system designed to halt trains automatically at a stop sign.

However, one of the trains was not equipped with the system, according to Marc Descheemaecker, a senior official for the SNCB national rail service.

The information caused concern among the train drivers, the Belgian press and beyond.

source

Run_to_da_hills

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

The older brownish red stock doesn't look to have survived as well as the newer white stuff.

They must date back to the 60ies at least, I noticed "slide a lite" windows instead of AC that were also common on Irish pre Dart rolling stock.

Driver of one of the trains jumped out before impact and survived.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7029015.ece

meathstevie

Those brown train carraiges have an older appearance than their actual actually age, a good few would date back at the earliest to the late eighties or early nineties and would have been regularly overhauled. If you go back further in history the loc's would have been diesel powered and both trains in the crash are running on electricity. They would generally be used on regional routes with plenty passenger traffic over relatively short distances they're equipped with wide doors and plenty of seating and standing space. Those silvery grey yokes would be geared towards longer distance intercity routes.