Australia: Buffer stop collision at Richmond, Sydney 22 Jan 2018

[Chris M]

A train hit the buffers at Richmond station in Sydney, Australia today injuring about 16 people, some seriously. The driver was one of the injured but how severely was not clear.

It seems that the train hit at significant speed, estimated by one witness in the platform as "50 to 70 kilometres an hour" (30-45mph) and that it did not appear to break, although official sources state it was slowing for the end of the line. After colliding with the buffers it rebounded back - from the photos I'd say on the order of 2 metres.

Fortunately the trains are modern rolling stock, introduced 2011-2014 according to Wikipedia, and they appear to have generally stood up well to the impact with most injuries coming from people who were standing ready to leave the train being thrown off their feet.

More details and pictures in the following news reports:
www.smh.com.au/nsw/people-injured-after-train-crash-at-richmond-station-20180121-h0lzg6.html

www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/sydney-train-crash-multiple-injuries-following-incident-at-richmond-station/news-story/ff5c3e279222961ce81c73bfa66e889d [warning: contains images of blood]

 

[WatcherZero]

It looks like it concertinaed a bit with the carriage articulations being crushed flat, thankfully all the injuries from deceleration rather than crushing, a couple of spinal injuries but no fatalities or life changing injuries.

A cause of concern is doesn't look like the buffer was set up to handle a dellner coupler very well, it bounced back several feet while the buffers deformed, there was also twisting to the front of the train with the cab front possibly due to uneven deformation of the buffers, you cant really see it in the photo but the train is slanted about half a foot lower on the platform side than the opposite side.