Major railway crash in Spain on July 24, 2013

Disasters on the railway are not as frequent as on asphalt roads. The trains move each in its own way. The mechanisms of rolling stock management on the railway are constantly being improved. Systems designed to prevent a train crash usually have several degrees of protection. After all, railway passenger transport is different in that in the event of an accident, a large number of people are at once threatened.

In order for an accident to occur, as a rule, several independent factors do not coincide, as it happened on July 24, 2013. A major railway accident in Spain killed 79 people that day.

The railways of Spain

Spain has a perfect and fairly extensive network of railways, which evenly covers the entire area of the country, and also connects it with its closest neighbors on the continent. If local railways are involved in transport at the local level, then interregional and international flights are managed by the state company RENFE.

In Spain, as in Russia, the width of the railway track differs from the European one (the distance between the rails is even wider than in our country). But unlike Russia in Spain, there is a second, European network of railways, parallel to the national one. This avoids the long and costly operation of "transplanting" wagons to other platforms when crossing borders. Moreover, the Spaniards went further - some carriers operate compositions that have the technical ability to change their own track width from native to European.

Chronology of events

The tragedy occurred on a high-speed railway at a distance of less than five kilometers from the station of Santiago de Compostela. The train crashed on the route Madrid-Ferrol. The brand of locomotive Alvia refers to models with increased speed characteristics.

In the evening of July 24 it became known that eight wagons of the train had come down from the rails. Since the accident occurred at high speed, many people were injured or killed as a result of overturning of the cars.

In addition, a major railway accident in Spain was preparing new tests for its victims. In some of the overturned wagons a fire broke out. People deafened at the fall, were blocked in burning cars. Vehicles, as a rule, have a sufficiently high combustible load. The fire spreads quickly, but the arrival of firefighters and rescuers takes time. Experts say that most of the dead had no chance to survive.

This major railway accident in Spain caused the death of 79 people, about 150 received various injuries and injuries. The next day, national mourning was declared in the country.

What was the reason

The largest railway accident in Spain, of course, immediately became the object of a thorough investigation. The train was operated by a machinist of great experience, named Francisco José Garson Amo. On the site where the tragedy occurred, the railway tracks make a sharp turn. Because of this, in order to avoid excessive overloads from centrifugal forces, the speed on it is limited to 80 km / h. As the investigation showed, Francisco Jose did not slow down (the normal cruising speed of the train is about 200 km / h), as required by the timetable. Studies have shown that at the time of derailment, the train had a speed of 230 km / h.

However, the reason for the railway accident, as it turned out, lies in the failure of automation. If it was serviceable, the driver would first receive a signal about speeding, and then, if he did not take measures, the speed of the locomotive would be reduced compulsorily.

Long before the tragedy

Unfortunately, this catastrophe did not become the first incident on the railways of Spain. The presence of a large number of people in a confined space makes them easy victims not only of circumstances and unprofessional actions. So, in the capital of the country on March 11, 2004, in the morning, when urban and suburban transport is full of people, in the electric trains three suicide bombers launched inefficient mechanisms. 192 citizens were missing from Spain as a result of this terrorist act, the wounded turned out to be more than two thousand.