Transportation Safety Board Report into Via train Accident


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A fatal passenger train derailment was caused by excessive speed, investigators said Thursday. The train was going four times too fast before deadly crash
The accident has left experts and observers struggling to understand why the train would have hit the switch at such a speed.
Via spokesman Malcolm Andrews said the company welcomed the findings, but cautioned against drawing any conclusions or laying any blame before the formal investigation concluded.
``It's far too early in this investigation to jump to any conclusions whatsoever,'' said Andrews.

Video and full story at:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/68913-train-going-four-times-too-fast-deadly-crash
 
even if the trainee was at the throttle, how did 2 other people in the cab not doing anything?
 
With all three dead there's no one to tell the story. One can only guess but the regulars would know the road like the back of their hands, so! they wern't paying attention while approaching the switch. That's most likely the reason, but WHY! The rest is only guess work unless an atopsy on the engineers comes up with a common fact pertaining to all three that rendered them incapable of dealing with the danger.
Cheers
Willis
 
I understand that crossover was almost never used, so the logical assumption is that they weren't expecting to use it, and probably never noticed the signals.
 
Sure, but aren't they in radio communication? Shouldn't the dispatcher verify that the engineers know what's coming rather than relying on blinky lights?
 
Wonder if the toxicology reports are back yet. The explanation could also be a simple as the three of them getting into a conversation and letting the situation get away from them.
 
I doubt we'll hear much more for awhile as there are lawsuits involved now.
Willis
 
LoudMusic said:
Sure, but aren't they in radio communication? Shouldn't the dispatcher verify that the engineers know what's coming rather than relying on blinky lights?
Click to expand...

There's often very little specific communication of this sort in CTC territory.

The "blinky lights" are designed to give the engineer all the information he needs. Canadian signals use "speed signalling" indications - the signal indication would indicate the speed required through the switches. Sometimes the dispatcher will informally tell the train about things that are coming up if they're already talking to each other, but it's not really required since all movements are simply by signal indication.

The signal indication should have been sufficient to indicate the need to slow down.

Basically, there are four obvious possibilities I see, although the first two can pretty much be ruled out.

1 - Crew was asleep/incapacitated (unlikely. train was accelerating from a station stop)
2 - Mechanical failure in the engine (unlikely. according to the article, train was still accelerating from its station stop and no brake application was even attempted)
3 - Signal failure giving an incorrect indication (possible - unlikely but has not been ruled out)
4 - Crew misintepreted signal for some reason (unfortunately the most likely although it shouldn't really happen with such experienced crew members. it's possible that since VIA trains normally went straight at this point they saw what they expected to see, but for all 3 of them to misread it would really be strange. Could also be noted that after being stopped in the block for several minutes (for the station stop) it's not really proper to be hitting the next signal at track speed anyway - although in this case the tracks are bullet straight so the signal is visible from the station so that's a moot point.)
5 - something I havent' considered yet?

The investigation will certainly have their work cut out for them since there's no voice recordings to work from and no way to know the minds of anyone involved, just physical and software evidence. At this point it will be quite some time before the investigation comes up with final answers. The data from the event recorder is pretty clear cut. The reasons why are not.
 
FCL2117 said:
I understand that crossover was almost never used, so the logical assumption is that they weren't expecting to use it, and probably never noticed the signals.
Click to expand...

That'd be a pretty big error under the circumstances, but unfortunately could be possible. Do the same thing the same way every day for years and then not notice the minor change.

No way to know, really.
 
That sounds like it comes down to human error based on insignificant broadcasting of information. They were told what was coming, but not in a way that forced their attention. If a red light lit up the cabin telling them they were moving too fast for an upcoming route they would likely have lowered the throttle or even hit the brakes. But my understanding now is that nothing IN the cab alerted them visually or audibly that a change had been made. It's purely signs outside the train, which had probably never been modified, until this day.

Even if there isn't remote control of the locomotives, some better way of forcing the engineer to receive information about what's coming up seems imperative. But I still think giving dispatch the ability to hit the brakes on a train would be rather beneficial. Of course they'd have to also have real time information about what every train is doing in order for that to be effective. And a little two way GPS is rather simple to setup.
 
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