Train crash in Greece. At least 46 dead and at least 90 injured.

AMKC

A passenger train with 350 people on board crashed into a freight train.

Channel 4 had the crash from CCTV on its bulletin. It was like an explosion going off.

So Greece has the most dangerous railway system in Europe. Everything has to be done manually. Someone fu-cked up big time here.

There rail Network is owned by an Italian company/Consortium.

An appalling tragedy. Transport Minister resigned out of respect for the deceased. No modern train, plane or shipping system should rely on one or two humans being doing everything just right, so far seems like the Greek rail system does just that.

Interestingly City of Derry Airport has (until last I heard) relied on a telephone call with the city rail station to ensure no train is passing close to beginning of runway when an aircraft is landing as there would be a considerable collision risk of aircraft got slightly too low.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120303205#Comment_120303205

The transport minister seems like an honourable one. From BBC:

Announcing his resignation, Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis stated: "When something so tragic happens, it is impossible to continue and pretend it didn't happen."

It’s a horrible scene, and tragedy that simply should be almost impossible in 2023.

There were questions raised about the state of the greek railway system in recent years. It seems to have the highest rates of fatal accidents in the EU according to ERA (European Railway Agency) reporting per million km travelled.

They’re still relatively safe compared to cars etc, but you can see Greece and several other countries’ stats are far out of line with EU norms.

Seems there are likely issues with chronic underfunding, and they were exacerbated by the Greek experience of the financial crisis since 2008.

https://www.era.europa.eu/system/files/2022-10/Report%20on%20Railway%20Safety%20and%20Interoperability%20in%20the%20EU%202022.pdf

Polar101

There are so few train accidents with fatalities in Europe that the graphs don't necessarily show useful information - for example, according to the second graph Spain has the most dangerous railways in Europe, but that's mainly because of the Santiago crash where 79 people died in 2013. While per train kilometres they're listed as the 9th safest.

I guess we'll have to wait to find out if the arrested station master had anything to do with the accident. You'd think a main line like this wouldn't rely on someone's manual input for keeping trains on separate tracks, but who knows.

Seems to be a lot of anger about it in Greece:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64820085

A Dub in Glasgo

and quite right about the anger. The Greek govt are still allowing 20th century operating practices on their rail network. The poor chap who made the error will be hung out to dry but it was a management and government error.

Munstergirl854

I read today the controller was in the job 40 days..earlier in the days a train broke down and he switched the track to allow an engine to tow it away..he then forget to switch back to the normal position meaning both trains in the crash were on the same track..no time to react as one was just coming out of the tunnel at the time...

He must be in an absolutely desperate frame of mind...

rogber

Horrendous and tragic accident, unfortunately things like this will always happen, but still important to try and learn lessons

A Dub in Glasgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120307316#Comment_120307316

Will always happy if the rail network is blase about safety especially when lessons have been learned from similar accidents and mitigation measures have been devised