Until it’s made public black box information It is impossible to know exactly what happened on the freezing cold Wednesday morning for a Civia 465 to hit a Series 447 from behind, leaving 155 minor injuries and shock to the body of the 1,300 passengers traveling between the two convoys. However, there are important facts on the table to take into account that, added together, point to a perfect storm of factors.
Drivers and professionals from the sector consulted maintain that the fog and the situation of the halt -immediately after a curve- played against a scenario with more problematic elements. The “permissive sign” (the P you see at traffic lights), a common operation that allows the driver to pass a red light, in this case it could have been complicated by the zero visibility caused by the fog and the curve. Hence, it is possible that the driver, despite passing at low speed, did not see the parked train and hit him from behind. Besides, andThe train that received the impact, a 447, does not have rear LEDsas they do have other 447 regional ones, a difference that is noticeable, and a lot.
If you are regular Rodalies users, surely you are familiar with a large letter P under the traffic lights on the tracks. This letter indicates that the semaphore is “permissive”. If the traffic light does not have P, it means that the signal is “absolute” and there is no doubt: the driver must stop until it turns green. If it does, however, as is the case of the traffic light before reaching the stop for Montcada-Manresawhere the collision occurred, the driver can pass doing the maneuver known as “march in sight”, something very common and safe, according to the professionals consulted, which allows, they explain, that there are several trains between two signals and speed up traffic. The problem with this maneuver is that it places all the weight on the driver. You should slow downsomething that according to the travelers consulted by this newspaper the driver did do– and check that there are no obstacles on the road. So: why didn’t the Civia engineer see the train that was still stopped at the station?
It is evident that the fog didn’t help. Nor that the 447 still stopped at the station didn’t have the much more powerful rear LEDs that other trains do have. Neither is the closed curve nor the already famous “P”. Without it, the engineer would have stopped until the previous train had left for Montcada-Bifucació, the next station towards which both trains were heading.
Is the ‘P’ the problem?
Do the train drivers then ask to end the ‘P’ for safety? No. The ‘P’, insist the professionals consulted, They are essential in many points with a large train traffic, such as Sants or Paseo de Gràcia. They are also safe, as long as there is visibility and the driver can see the train ahead perfectly, which seems quite evident that it did not happen on Wednesday morning in Montcada-Manresa. However, the group of train drivers do claim to change this signaling system at points with low visibility, as included in the Rodalies Plan 2020-2030.
Another hypothesis, compatible with everything that has been said so far, is that the engineer received the warning of the green signal that the train in front had, without seeing the convoy, and understood that it was for him, something that will be known when the investigation is finished. .
protection systems
Related news
In the Spanish railway network there are several protection systems: the ERTMS (the most expensive), the LZB and the most universal: the ASFA (automatic braking announcement and signals). R4, the line on which the accident occurred, has two blockades that prevent trains from colliding from the front and rear: the ASFA digital protection system and the BAB blocking (automatic banalized blocking) with Centralized Traffic Control. The BAB works by track circuit: the signal changes from green to red whenever you are two “cantons” -traffic lights for the uninitiated- from a train. What happens then? That when there are delays, something very common, the trains are not two “cantons”. The aforementioned “maneuver in sight” allows there to be several convoys “in a row” in the same “canton” so as not to leave travelers hanging between stations, for example. In the aforementioned cases of Sants and Paseo de Gràcia, with extremely saturated tunnels, this It is not a problem because they are on a straight line.
The Plan of Rodalies de Catalunya provides for the change of R-1 and R-4 to the system ERTMS N2 -the one that high-speed trains currently use-, something that would practically make the maneuvers disappear in sight, which probably would have prevented events like the one on Wednesday.