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tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
Pilgrims used to walk to Santiago de Compostela (El Camino de Santiago). But you need time and good legs. Now they can take a train. I feel very sad. Tullio |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65689 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
I've read of a train accident in Spain, near Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. More than 60 dead. Must have been shoddy maintenance of the track then, the French haven't had such problems, nor has Germany. The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22149 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
Don't speculate on the cause of the crash, wait until there is a public announcement. As to structural safety, yes trains could be built to similar standards as cars, with all the secondary safety features they have, but the mass would increase dramatically, as would the restrictions on passenger movement, luggage stowage etc. Actually to apply car structural standards to trains would be of no benefit, as it would place emphasis on the wrong areas. Looking at the available pictures it would appear that much of the damage, and so casualties, is the result of carriages hitting the bridge wing walls and pillars, which are pretty solid lumps of concrete (drive you car into a modern motorway bridge at 300kph and see what it looks like - no, get a crash dummy to do the driving, you probably wouldn't survive) Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
France had a recent accident at Bretigny-sur-Orge on July 12, with 6 dead. But Google train accidents and see there are many of them worldwide. Tullio |
The Simonator Send message Joined: 18 Nov 04 Posts: 5700 Credit: 3,855,702 RAC: 50 |
Idiots jumping train barriers is just natural selection in action. Since first-world humans don't tend to get eaten by predators or die of cold over winter these days they had to improvise. A good solution would be to fit trains with cow catchers to scoop the car out of the way, that way the train doesn't get held up and block the line inconveniencing everyone else. Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge. |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
It looks like the train was going at 180 km/h where it should have gone at 80 km/h. The result is obvious. Tullio |
Jean Labrecque Send message Joined: 4 Jun 03 Posts: 77 Credit: 14,518,927 RAC: 0 |
UPDATE AT LEAST 78 DEAD also you can see the video of the accident from survellance camera in the article http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=IE8Activity&from=&to=en&a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.radio-canada.ca%2fnouvelles%2fInternational%2f2013%2f07%2f25%2f001-train-espagne-wrap.shtml |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65689 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
I saw the video of the Spanish Passenger train on TV, something wasn't right, that's for sure. Where it happened has had terrorist activity from some Basques for years wanting an independent country carved out of Spain and part of France too and that's a fact. Now unlike here in the US, the railroad ties in Europe from what I've read use bolts and large nuts to hold the rail to what's known as a fish plate, which holds the rail to the ties, here in the US, railroads use spikes on wooden ties, those spikes are about 5"-6" long instead of bolts, their harder to remove than bolts/nuts, as long as the ties are fresh, most class 1 railroads in the US try and keep their MOW operations on the move replacing rail and ties nearly all the time, but they have a lot of track to maintain and the rails really take a beating cause of all the stress put on them cause of all the trains going over the rails. I can't say much about the smaller railroads, some have terrible track conditions and so move at really slow speeds to keep from derailing their trains due to a lack of maintenance, which for them isn't cheap or inexpensive, but that's beyond My knowledge. Some track today is actually replaced as a single piece, it's called panel track, if you've ever seen model railroad sectional track, then you've seen panel track that some railroads have used. The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
David S Send message Joined: 4 Oct 99 Posts: 18352 Credit: 27,761,924 RAC: 12 |
A good solution would be to fit trains with cow catchers to scoop the car out of the way, that way the train doesn't get held up and block the line inconveniencing everyone else. Nice idea, but it doesn't work in practice. The vehicle tends to get hung up on something and crushed rather than thrown out of the way. David Sitting on my butt while others boldly go, Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. |
David S Send message Joined: 4 Oct 99 Posts: 18352 Credit: 27,761,924 RAC: 12 |
Reports are it was high speed. Speeds of up to 310 km/h (193 mph). Don't know how fast it was going at the time. As mentioned, it was going 180 when it should have been going 80. The driver knew he was going too fast and talked about it on the radio. No reason for that speed has been given, that I've heard. Perhaps this will be the wake up call that the carriages need considerably more crash safety built into them as we have done with automobiles. Crumple and crush zones, energy absorption, seat belts, air bags, roll cages, whatever it takes. America has considerably higher standards for crash safety than most of the world. This is mainly due to passenger trains running on the same tracks as freight: the theory is that you need a heavier passenger car to stand up to a collision with a freight train. The high speed trains being designed for California will be restricted to normal speed when on shared tracks and only be allowed their maximum speed on their private high speed right of way; the reason for this does include the track construction and maintenance standards, but also has to do with collision strength. Similarly, where urban light rail systems share tracks with freight railroads (such as San Diego), they are not allowed to be on the track at the same time; the freight usually has to do its work at night when the light rail system is shut down. These higher standards are part of the reason HSR will be so expensive in the US. We can't just take a European or Asian train and plunk it down on our rails, even with a few tweaks. It needs major design changes to meet our standards. This need to almost "reinvent the wheel" drives up the costs, not to mention actual higher production costs for the additional steel, and the extra fuel to move it at high speed. There is also a movement toward crumple zones rather than strictly relying on crush resistance alone. High speed rail advocates prefer collision avoidance with automated safety systems over increasing the crash standards. It will be interesting to see why the train in Spain was even able to go at more than double its allowed speed. David Sitting on my butt while others boldly go, Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65689 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
Reports are it was high speed. Speeds of up to 310 km/h (193 mph). Don't know how fast it was going at the time. Some think and have asked elsewhere, why is it so expensive? You just explained it, at least partly, the rest devolves to labor costs, the value of the US Dollar vs other currencies, the cost of materials, lawsuits/lawyers(thrown in for good measure by Me) and the cost of land(if any cost for land as some land is Government owned or is held in trust for the people of the USA), the US spends Billions of dollars on interstate highway construction per year and/or maintenance every year and an unknown amount on airport construction and maintenance, plus the airways are tightly controlled when it comes to airliners and is pretty full, the radar screens can only hold so much detail and aircraft cause of in flight safety concerns and that all costs real money, and yet some don't want to spend Government money on infrastructure with private contractors which would create jobs... The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
David S Send message Joined: 4 Oct 99 Posts: 18352 Credit: 27,761,924 RAC: 12 |
I saw the video of the Spanish Passenger train on TV, something wasn't right, that's for sure. Where it happened has had terrorist activity from some Basques for years wanting an independent country carved out of Spain and part of France too and that's a fact. I just heard terrorism has been ruled out. Now unlike here in the US, the railroad ties in Europe from what I've read use bolts and large nuts to hold the rail to what's known as a fish plate, which holds the rail to the ties, here in the US, railroads use spikes on wooden ties, those spikes are about 5"-6" long instead of bolts, their harder to remove than bolts/nuts, as long as the ties are fresh, most class 1 railroads in the US try and keep their MOW operations on the move replacing rail and ties nearly all the time, but they have a lot of track to maintain and the rails really take a beating cause of all the stress put on them cause of all the trains going over the rails. I can't say much about the smaller railroads, some have terrible track conditions and so move at really slow speeds to keep from derailing their trains due to a lack of maintenance, which for them isn't cheap or inexpensive, but that's beyond My knowledge. Some track today is actually replaced as a single piece, it's called panel track, if you've ever seen model railroad sectional track, then you've seen panel track that some railroads have used. US railroads have fairly recently gone to screws as well. I would expect them to actually hold better than spikes because of their threads. For high performance and lower maintenance, concrete ties are sometimes used. This is mostly for high speed passenger, but sometimes the freight railroads use them in critical areas, such as sharp curves or high-volume lines. Quality control with the manufacture of concrete ties has been a problem. Amtrak has had to replace miles of them that failed prematurely, and sued the maker. Union Pacific installed defective concrete ties on the Chicago-St. Louis route and replaced them a year later because they *might* fail. Most tracks you see are in maintenance classes, I believe 1 through 5. Federal standards determine the minimum maintenance requirements for each class (although a railroad can call a track a lower class if it wants to; even a brand new track that's up to class 5 can be called class 1 if the company wants to). The classes in turn determine the maximum allowable speed on that track. (The type of traffic control system in use -- CTC, automatic block signals, Track Warrant Control, etc. -- also figures into what class a track is.) At the bottom end, below class 1, is "exempted" track, which is pretty crappy, with speeds of 10 mph or less. For high speed, there is also class 6. Most of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is class 6 (the exceptions being where they can't go fast anyway). I'll try to find a web page to point you to that explains this. (There is a page about track on wikipedia, but I didn't find one specifically about maintenance classes.) Note that track classes are not related to railroad classes, which are based on revenue. There are 7 Class 1 railroads in the US, plus Amtrak. David Sitting on my butt while others boldly go, Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. |
W-K 666 Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 18996 Credit: 40,757,560 RAC: 67 |
A fishplate is used to join the lengths of track together. But most new track these days is welded using thermite in Europe. track welding And most sleepers (ties) are concrete. |
W-K 666 Send message Joined: 18 May 99 Posts: 18996 Credit: 40,757,560 RAC: 67 |
High speed rail advocates prefer collision avoidance with automated safety systems over increasing the crash standards. It will be interesting to see why the train in Spain was even able to go at more than double its allowed speed. BBC interview with train expert, who is baffled |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
High speed rail advocates prefer collision avoidance with automated safety systems over increasing the crash standards. It will be interesting to see why the train in Spain was even able to go at more than double its allowed speed. Baffling indeed. My '90 Olds Cierra quits winding at about 95 mph. No more HP. The tach says it should go further, but reality says nope. It's all done at 95. Windage and such. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
Wiggo Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 34744 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 |
It seems that the crashed Spanish train's speed indicator was showing 190km/h after the crash and video evidence is suggesting somewhere between 160-180km/h. The big question is why was the driver of the train doing that speed in a restricted 80km/h zone. Cheers. |
David S Send message Joined: 4 Oct 99 Posts: 18352 Credit: 27,761,924 RAC: 12 |
High speed rail advocates prefer collision avoidance with automated safety systems over increasing the crash standards. It will be interesting to see why the train in Spain was even able to go at more than double its allowed speed. I didn't mean able in that sense. I'm sure the train is quite able to go at least as fast as it was in fact going.* The question is why a safety system didn't kick in to slow or stop it when it approached a speed restriction. FWIW, I found out last fall that my '08 Chevy Trailblazer can go at least 90. I didn't try to do more than that. Didn't feel like meeting one of Indiana's finest. *The current world speed record for conventional steel wheel on steel rail, set by a specially modified French TGV, is what it is not because the train maxed out but because the driver had to slow for a curve he was approaching. David Sitting on my butt while others boldly go, Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65689 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
High speed rail advocates prefer collision avoidance with automated safety systems over increasing the crash standards. It will be interesting to see why the train in Spain was even able to go at more than double its allowed speed. I watched that on youtube, that's quite a feat for the TGV. My car is limited to 105Mph by the present computer, it's a 1999 Ford Escort zx2 sport Hot Coupe and it was only made for 2 years, if I had the s/r computer, that top speed wouldn't be 105Mph... The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22149 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
Its not "quite a feat for the TGV", on a few grounds, first its not a TGV its a Talgo S730, second its top speed is 250kph, so 190kph is just romping a long nicely. The speed limit at the location of the accident is only 80kph. Its also worth noting that this is a new section of track, built to avoid an even sharper curve. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65689 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
Its not "quite a feat for the TGV", on a few grounds, first its not a TGV its a Talgo S730, second its top speed is 250kph, so 190kph is just romping a long nicely. The speed limit at the location of the accident is only 80kph. Its also worth noting that this is a new section of track, built to avoid an even sharper curve. I was commenting about the French HSR speed record of 574.8kph or 357mph(NY Times) Rob, the French used a modified TGV, not a Talgo also ran... The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
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