Just over two years after the train accident that occurred on January 25, 2018, involving a Trenord regional train in Pioltello (Milan), a derailment in Lombardy, this time in the province of Lodi, involved a Frecciarossa high-speed train, causing two deaths and 31 injuries. And once again he raises the 'maintenance alarm' of the railway lines and 'rolling stock'. The first findings of the judicial police investigations carried out on the site of the derailment that occurred this morning at 5.34 in the territory of Ospitaletto Lodigiano (Lodi) which involved the High Speed Train 9595 Milan Central-Salerno, say that at the centre of the causes could be a poorly assembled or defective switch or even a poorly repaired switch. In fact, the 'zero point', where the flow problem occurred, and which was found 5-600 metres from the place where the 'derailed' convoy stopped, is located at a switch. Furthermore, last night, the stretch was reportedly undergoing maintenance, as reported by the Lodi prosecutor, Domenico Chiaro, by railway personnel. "Maintenance work," the prosecutor said at a press conference, "is done because something has broken, otherwise there's no reason to be there at 4:XNUMX in the morning." "If the switch had been straight ahead," he added, "the train wouldn't have derailed; that's not hard to understand. It was not in a position to ensure the train could move freely." There would appear to be too many coincidences to avoid suspecting a direct cause, although until the investigations and expert assessments ordered by the judicial authorities are completed, no specific details can be determined. Certainly, Chiaro emphasized, "it was not a voluntary act, the attack hypothesis is completely baseless." There is then another possibility and the prosecutor of Lodi explains it: "We are verifying - he said - the hypothesis of human error". According to law enforcement, the train's locomotive, which veered off the tracks at 290 km/h for reasons yet to be clarified, whether related to a malfunction in the switch or incorrect signaling, literally 'took off', detaching itself from the rest of the train and completely leaving its tracks, then crashing into a trolley or similar vehicle on a parallel track, and then into a railway building. The rest of the train would also have continued its journey parallel to the tracks, but outside its natural lane, with the second carriage at a certain point tilting to one side. The train's 'deviation' is said to have occurred at a switch where, just last night, or late yesterday evening, a 'switch', or a piece of the switch itself, was replaced or repaired. The presence of such a mechanism on a straight stretch would be due to the parallel running of several high-speed tracks along that stretch. Now all the material and places involved have been seized. "The maintenance interruption ended before dawn, just before the first train of the morning, AV 9595," explains Adriano Coscia, Secretary General of Orsa Ferrovie, "and regardless of what went wrong and who physically intervened, it once again becomes clear that despite cutting-edge equipment, the problem with rail transport lies in its maintenance. The ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), one of the most advanced in Europe, was active on that stretch, and would have corrected any human error."
High Speed Train Derailed: Switch Blamed
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Article published on February 6, 2020 - 20:09 PM - News Desk
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