Milan Train Crash (25/01)

[Mag_seven]

From the BBC:

A commuter train has derailed near Milan, killing at least two people and injuring about 100.

Firefighters are trying to free several people trapped in one carriage, between the stations of Treviglio and Pioltello, Italy's Rai news reports.

Ten people are critically injured. Hundreds of commuters were on board.

The Trenord train was heading to Milan from Cremona, in northern Italy. The cause of the crash is not yet clear. It happened just before 07:00 (06:00 GMT).

 

[oldman]

According to this site, first indications are of a points malfunction. Courtesy of google translate:

The locomotive and the first car would have regularly passed the exchange [points] that would have been misaligned just as the central wagons passed, which would then be derailed.

 

[duesselmartin]

it seems from various sources that the loco was at the rear of the push-pull train.

 

[Taunton]

Yet another substantial derailment with a loco pushing from the back (this can be seen in a BBC news aerial photo of the debris trail).

One carriage seems to have substantially "folded" horizontally, about it's doorway, doubtless by striking something. It's a commuter-style 1/3 - 2/3 door arrangement rather than end vestibules. I wonder how much less robust in collisions this style of design is at the doorways (which is of course just where people stand).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yet another substantial derailment with a loco pushing from the back (this can be seen in a BBC news aerial photo of the debris trail).

One carriage seems to have substantially "folded" horizontally, about it's doorway, doubtless by striking something. It's a commuter-style 1/3 - 2/3 door arrangement rather than end vestibules. I wonder how much less robust in collisions this style of design is at the doorways (which is of course just where people stand).

To be fair they are old body-underframe coaches rather than modern ones. Though any hole is going to weaken something, of course.

 

[SHD]

According to this site, first indications are of a points malfunction. Courtesy of google translate:

Italian media reports that RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana - the Italian equivalent of NR) has probably identified the cause of the crash. The train encountered a broken rail several kilometres up the line and several intermediate coaches derailed, causing the resulting disaster when running over the set of points.

The Milano Procurature has opened an investigation for charges of "disastro colposo" (manslaughter through negligence).

The tragic broken rail picture is available at http://www.corriere.it/

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The first report I heard on BBC R5L used the term "switch failure".
They changed this later to "points failure".

 

[Bletchleyite]

Italian media reports that RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana - the Italian equivalent of NR) has probably identified the cause of the crash. The train encountered a broken rail several kilometres up the line and several intermediate coaches derailed, causing the resulting disaster when running over the set of points.

The Milano Procurature has opened an investigation for charges of "disastro colposo" (manslaughter through negligence).

The tragic broken rail picture is available at http://www.corriere.it/

Could this be Italy's Hatfield?

 

[AndrewE]

Italian media reports that RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana - the Italian equivalent of NR) has probably identified the cause of the crash. The train encountered a broken rail several kilometres up the line and several intermediate coaches derailed, causing the resulting disaster when running over the set of points.

The Milano Procurature has opened an investigation for charges of "disastro colposo" (manslaughter through negligence).

The tragic broken rail picture is available at http://www.corriere.it/

Does that count as a broken rail? It looks like a massive triangular lump that has broken off through a fishplate bolt hole.

 

[SHD]

From a media reporter point of view, a broken section of head at the level of the head-web limit, at one end of a rail segment, is quite aptly described as a “broken rail”, don’t you think?

 

[AndrewE]

Agreed, but when I hear "broken rail" I don't picture a lump missing out of the top. Probably my misconception.

 

[ejstubbs]

Italian media reports that RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana - the Italian equivalent of NR) has probably identified the cause of the crash. The train encountered a broken rail several kilometres up the line and several intermediate coaches derailed, causing the resulting disaster when running over the set of points.

That would seem to tally with the report on the BBC web site: "Witnesses said the train trembled for a few minutes before the accident." The Guardian web site has: "Italian media quoted witnesses as saying the train had begun to shake heavily as if it were travelling over rocks. Then it braked suddenly and derailed."

 

[Taunton]

I've seen photos of comparable rail end breaks through fishplate holes before. By the track circuit cables attached looks like it was an insulated rail joint, I'm guessing broken at the running on end. I wonder how long that fishbolt has been missing.

 

[AM9]

To be fair they are old body-underframe coaches rather than modern ones. Though any hole is going to weaken something, of course.

Not if its structure is designed to allow for all openings. All passenger coaches since the MKIIs were introduced have been that way in the UK and even then one of the MKIIIs (with end doors in vestibules of course) involved in the Southall crash was folded when it hit an OLE stanchion. The locations of doors in a well designed coach is irrelevant to its crash survivability, - even if some passengers don't like them.

 

[Jensen]

I thought it was Hatfield where the buffet car folded after contact with an OLE stanchion?

 

[duesselmartin]

Agreed, but when I hear "broken rail" I don't picture a lump missing out of the top. Probably my misconception.

Could that severe damage have happened when the train crossed the broken rail?

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Does that count as a broken rail? It looks like a massive triangular lump that has broken off through a fishplate bolt hole.

From a layperson's point of view, it seems to be a rail, and it certainly seems to be broken. Broken rail sounds like an entirely fair description, therefore.

 

[SHD]

Could that severe damage have happened when the train crossed the broken rail?

Indeed, there is no certainty as to the causal chain between these elements.

http://milano.corriere.it/notizie/c...te-206a6db2-01c4-11e8-9ff2-341a2fe0297c.shtml

«Questi cedimenti possono avvenire per tanti motivi ma al momento è prematuro stabilire se questo sia stata la causa o l’effetto del deragliamento».

"These failures [of the rail and fishplate fasteners] may happen due to many reasons and it is premature at the moment to establish whether they have been a cause of an effect of the derailment"

 

[AM9]

I thought it was Hatfield where the buffet car folded after contact with an OLE stanchion?

I don't know about the hatfield crash but coaches H & G were both severely distorted at Southall, - in the case of coach G it was considered in the report as a significant contributor to the number of deaths. See here:

http://www.epcresilience.com/EPC/me...iry Reports/Southall-Rail-(2000).pdf?ext=.pdf

I've alway felt that the assumption that coaches that are designed and fully tested aren't compromised by designed-in door or window openings. The experience of decades of airliner design inherited by rail when coaches switched to monocoque principles without such stringent weight penalties have ensured that openings do not significantly compromise the shell's integrity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The thing worth bearing in mind is that these were not monocoques, they were classic underframed UIC stock from the 1970s or 1980s. Mainland Europe was classically way behind the UK on safety of that kind - they were still building body-underframe coaches with weak bodies for years after we stopped, and they still use screw couplings and buffers on many trains with no override protection.

 

[Bald Rick]

Agreed, but when I hear "broken rail" I don't picture a lump missing out of the top. Probably my misconception.

If that rail was here, it would count as broken, so yes it is a broken rail.

Surprisingly few 'broken rails' on NR are 'clean' breaks; many are chunks missing from the head or foot, and some are large cracks over a certain length /width.

 

[30907]

If that rail was here, it would count as broken, so yes it is a broken rail.

Surprisingly few 'broken rails' on NR are 'clean' breaks; many are chunks missing from the head or foot, and some are large cracks over a certain length /width.

Hither Green, just over 50 years ago, was similar IIRC?

 

[AM9]

The thing worth bearing in mind is that these were not monocoques, they were classic underframed UIC stock from the 1970s or 1980s. Mainland Europe was classically way behind the UK on safety of that kind - they were still building body-underframe coaches with weak bodies for years after we stopped, and they still use screw couplings and buffers on many trains with no override protection.

I think that it was an attempt to justify a poke at 1/3 2/3 doors.

 

[Muzer]

The thing worth bearing in mind is that these were not monocoques, they were classic underframed UIC stock from the 1970s or 1980s. Mainland Europe was classically way behind the UK on safety of that kind - they were still building body-underframe coaches with weak bodies for years after we stopped, and they still use screw couplings and buffers on many trains with no override protection.

I feel like I should know but I can't recall; which were the first monocoque coaches to be in widespread use in the UK?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I feel like I should know but I can't recall; which were the first monocoque coaches to be in widespread use in the UK?

Either Mk2 LHCS or the PEP EMUs, I suspect the former by a few years.

 

[AM9]

Either Mk2 LHCS or the PEP EMUs, I suspect the former by a few years.

Most of their basic features originated in the experimental set called XP64 which also launched the inter-city blue-grey livery (in 1964). There were changes to the XP64 doors, the experimental folding type being replaced by conventional MKI hinged ones. The various types sometimes had wrap around doors like MKIIIs. At the time, they were better than MKIs, quieter, better bogies B(4), disc brakes, and cast seat bodies with inset upholstery.
The class 310 and 312 EMUs were also built into MKII bodies.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The XP64 UIC-type doors were one of the biggest missed opportunities in the history of BR in my view.

Had they been fitted going forwards, together with UIC air-powered autoclose and door blocking[1], countless lives would have been saved from falling from trains.

[1] A pre-CDL feature which basically disables the inside handle when moving over 5km/h.

 

[AM9]

The XP64 UIC-type doors were one of the biggest missed opportunities in the history of BR in my view.

Had they been fitted going forwards, together with UIC air-powered autoclose and door blocking[1], countless lives would have been saved from falling from trains.

[1] A pre-CDL feature which basically disables the inside handle when moving over 5km/h.

Attitudes to safety were very different then. Look how many suffered with slam doors before people stopped sayting that sliding doors are only for Tube trains.

 

[edwin_m]

I don't think the XP64 was a monocoque structure, rather a Mk2-like interior and various other experimental features but in a body that was closer to Mk1. The brochure linked below, while focusing on improvements for passengers, does mention an underframe:

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_XP641964.pdf

Finally, all bolts securing the floor to the underframe have rubber bushes.

Also the coach ends in particular look much more like Mk1 than Mk2 construction.

According to Wikipedia, class 310 was in service before the first Mk2s so would be the first significant use of monocoque construction on BR. The PEP units were several years later.

 

[WatcherZero]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-42845626/italy-train-crash-cctv-released

CCTV released, looks like one of the centre carriages had derailed while the rest of the train was still on the rails.