Train/car collision

donvito99

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0214/galway.html



Interesting, as it says in the link, no one was hurt thankfully.

What speeds to they get up to there I wonder?

KevR

donvito99 wrote: »

What speeds to they get up to there I wonder?

I recorded a top speed of 127kmh on my GPS when travelling between Athenry and Galway on Saturday.

Not sure of the exact location of that crossing but trains would normally be travelling reasonably quick in that general area - but given that nobody was injured in today's crash, the train might have been going slower than usual for some reason..

Run_to_da_hills

I presume it was a 22,000 series

dowlingm

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0214/breaking51.html

Initial indications show a member of the public left the gates open after using them, the spokesman said, adding "a car drove on to the line, and the passengers - a man and woman - saw the train coming towards them so attempted to reverse the car. The train hit the front of the car".

The spokesman said the incident stresses the importance of using user operated level crossings correctly.

or of eliminating such crossings on mainlines.

According to a different boards thread, here's the location. Just east of where a Renmore halt for GMIT might go if they ever got off their ass and did it.

KevR

http://www.galwaynews.ie/17644-couple%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98miracle%E2%80%99-escape-train-smashes-car

Galway News wrote:

Couple’s ‘miracle’ escape as train smashes into car

February 15, 2011 - 7:27am Vehicle is struck y the Dublin train at Murrough level crossing
BY FRANK FARRAGHER

A YOUNG couple from Monaghan had what has been described as ‘a miracle escape’, when their car was struck by the Dublin train at Murrough shortly after mid-day yesterday.

The car had been travelling from the old Dublin Road area towards the general direction of Ballyloughane Beach when the accident occurred at an unmanned and infrequently used level crossing.

The incident occurred at around 12.05pm just as the three coach Dublin train was approaching – the front of the car was on the track and was struck by the train, spinning the vehicle around, but critically away from the track.

It is understood that the driver may have been in the process of trying to reverse away from the line when it was struck by the passing train.

A Garda spokesman said that the couple had a ‘miracle escape’ and although both of them were in a state of shock, they were uninjured in the incident.

The couple – both in their 20s – who would not have been familiar with the area, may have been trying to make their way to Ballyloughane Beach, but had taken the wrong road. The road they were on, only leads its way into a series of coastal fields.

Gardai and other emergency services were on the scene within minutes while the train stopped a short distance after the collision. The train eventually made its way into Ceannt Station, at around 1.10pm.

“The train collided with the car but thankfully it just spun the vehicle back onto the road. Things could have been an awful lot worse,” said a Garda spokesman.

The railway line to Athenry was closed for most of yesterday afternoon to allow for a technical examination of the scene to be carried out – hundreds of passengers were provided with alternative bus services but the rail schedule was back to normal this morning.

Myles McHugh, Service Planning Manager with Iarnród Eireann, told the Sentinel that there was a tremendous sense of relief in the aftermath of the accident that no one had been killed or injured.

However he exhorted all road users to be especially carefully with unmanned level crossings and to adhere diligently by all the regulations and procedures that applied to those crossings.

He said that Iarnród Eireann investigators would be carrying out a full investigation into the circumstances of the incident.

schemingbohemia

Have you seen how straight that stretch of track is? Absolute morons and candidates for the Darwin awards for being hit by the train. Thankfully the driver of the train was more aware than them.

BrianD

In the reports it says they were reversing but it's the front of the car that's damaged suggesting that the nose was just over the track or they had reversed completely back and the train clipped the front as they reversed. Was the way ahead blocked or was it possible that they were reversing back up the road after discovering that they were lost?

Mind you. you have to wonder "There was no warning at all. All there was was the stop sign – no flashing lights." according one of the occupants (from thejournal.ie)

goingnowhere

Photo here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12471381 clearly shows a large and obvious warning

Edit
Well it did until BBC removed the photo

Bluetonic

The couple speak...

Liveline Podcast - hit by a train
Rachel and Ryan had a lucky escape when their car was hit by a train on a level crossing

DWCommuter

Had a listen to it and looked at the photo. It seems like non locals were victims of bad engineering.

DWCommuter

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Have you seen how straight that stretch of track is? Absolute morons and candidates for the Darwin awards for being hit by the train. Thankfully the driver of the train was more aware than them.

Wildly biased statement.:rolleyes:

cson

They were off to a secluded spot for the ride, the dogs :pac:

DWCommuter

cson wrote: »

They were off to a secluded spot for the ride, the dogs :pac:

Nah I doubt it. Sure they'd just left a Hotel. They just wanted to look at Galway Bay until a big Korean hit them.

Run_to_da_hills

Any damage done to the train?

Losty Dublin

DWCommuter wrote: »

Had a listen to it and looked at the photo. It seems like non locals were victims of bad engineering.

Bad engineering? There is a gate and a stop sign in the photo in the Galway news so they both should have stopped the car before they attempted to cross the line. I'd reasonably assume that there was other warning signs in the vicinity of the crossing but the mere presence of a railway track in front of you should be indication enough of it being a railway line.

On the road safety side of it, if a motorist goes through any junction it's his/her obligation to make sure that the way is safe before they move on through. If they didn't at least look left and right before moving through they have only themselves to blame here; they could easily have been hit at any road junction as here; that is careless driving at best.

The one blessing is that they were uninjured though I'd hate to see the insurance bill for fixing up a railcar afterwards

Rud

Nah I doubt it. Sure they'd just left a Hotel. They just wanted to look at Galway Bay until a big Korean hit them.

hahahaha big Korean.Excellent

DWCommuter

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Bad engineering? There is a gate and a stop sign in the photo in the Galway news so they both should have stopped the car before they attempted to cross the line. I'd reasonably assume that there was other warning signs in the vicinity of the crossing but the mere presence of a railway track in front of you should be indication enough of it being a railway line.

On the road safety side of it, if a motorist goes through any junction it's his/her obligation to make sure that the way is safe before they move on through. If they didn't at least look left and right before moving through they have only themselves to blame here; they could easily have been hit at any road junction as here; that is careless driving at best.

The one blessing is that they were uninjured though I'd hate to see the insurance bill for fixing up a railcar afterwards

Listen to the radio interview and listen to it carefully. As for the crossing? After all the millions spent, what a shame these bog crossings still exist. The couple involved have accounted for themselves. What have Irish Rail said? At the end of the day its a boreen crossing on an intercity route. Not acceptable.

BrianD

DWCommuter wrote: »

Listen to the radio interview and listen to it carefully. As for the crossing? After all the millions spent, what a shame these bog crossings still exist. The couple involved have accounted for themselves. What have Irish Rail said? At the end of the day its a boreen crossing on an intercity route. Not acceptable.

Cost. You're talking about country lanes. The cost of over or under passes are huge for what is probably access to a single dwelling or field. These crossings are safe once people use common sense and follow the rules of the road.

What I can't understand is the constant reference to reversing. It's a single track and if they were already crossing it - why would you stop and reverse instead of going forward? Were they reversing up the road at the time or was the way ahead blocked? Something doesn't add up here. Also where are the gates that were left open?

However, it's very fortunate that neither they or any passengers were killed or injured.

BrianD

This seems to be the crossing on Google Maps.

here

Seems even Mr. Google wasn't prepared to drive his little car down this road!

Losty Dublin

DWCommuter wrote: »

Listen to the radio interview and listen to it carefully. As for the crossing? After all the millions spent, what a shame these bog crossings still exist. The couple involved have accounted for themselves. What have Irish Rail said? At the end of the day its a boreen crossing on an intercity route. Not acceptable.

I've listened to it. Several time.

They said they stopped at the stop sign, they saw some gates, they saw a stop sign and caution signs on the left and right yet they still traipsed forward and didn't check/caution anything and the train hit them. They didn't see several warning signs on the road that would normally tell you to stop at the best of times and the utter gob****es, the pair of them took their chances, it's as simple as that.

I agree with you that in an ideal world these sorts of crossings should not on lines but there must be hundreds of them nationwide and at hundreds of thousands of € to make right each one.

schemingbohemia

DWCommuter wrote: »

Wildly biased statement.:rolleyes:

and your chip on the shoulder attitude to CIE isn't biased at all?

oh and i plead guilty to being biased against morons.

Eiretrains

I think this may ultimately come down to the fact that they misunderstood the nature of the stop sign at the crossing, and assumed it was some sort of the junction. This was probably exacerbated by the fact someone carelessly left the gates open.

The driver did mention the warning signs, whether they were in English or Irish they didn't appear to give them much attention, mentioning that it appeared as a sign warning for a concealed junction so they must have given it quick a glance.
There's no photos of the actual crossing, but I'm assuming what signs they saw was something like this on the Westport line.
Perhaps the classic steam locomotive sign was either concealed or simply not there, the latter a failure on Irish Rail's part. There could have been one of these warning signs, but without the steam loco sign.

There are many crossings such as these and they cause in general little bother as someone mentioned when common sense is applied. Everyone knows there are so many of these crossings and replacing them would be very costly, I suspect some posts here are attempting to provoke an argument.;)

DWCommuter

schemingbohemia wrote: »

and your chip on the shoulder attitude to CIE isn't biased at all?

Nope. CIE are bigger morons than this couple will ever be and I doubt I'd have the room here to list why. Nothing biased about it. I only quote facts about CIE and in this particular case CIE must be accountable as well. Your all talking about commonsense, but yet none of you can even grasp the fact that non locals using this crossing may have difficulty with it. Commonsense has to be applied to both sides. The gates had been left open. They are meant to be closed. If they were closed then this couple wouldn't have been involved in an accident. Therefore the crossing is dangerous because its prone to being exposed to people not familiar with the area.

DWCommuter

Eiretrains wrote: »

I think this may ultimately come down to the fact that they misunderstood the nature of the stop sign at the crossing, and assumed it was some sort of the junction. This was probably exacerbated by the fact someone carelessly left the gates open.

The driver did mention the warning signs, whether they were in English or Irish they didn't appear to give them much attention, mentioning that it appeared as a sign warning for a concealed junction so they must have given it quick a glance.
There's no photos of the actual crossing, but I'm assuming what signs they saw was something like this on the Westport line.
Perhaps the classic steam locomotive sign was either concealed or simply not there, the latter a failure on Irish Rail's part. There could have been one of these warning signs, but without the steam loco sign.

There are many crossings such as these and they cause in general little bother as someone mentioned when common sense is applied. Everyone knows there are so many of these crossings and replacing them would be very costly, I suspect some posts here are attempting to provoke an argument.;)

That's a good post except for the last line. If having the opinion that CIE/IE are somewhat accountable is seen as attempting to provoke an argument then that is unfortunate. Im certainly not trying to provoke any argument. However its a pity that when accidents like this happen there is a belief that the operator is in no way responsible.

Vic_08

DWCommuter wrote: »

Nope. CIE are bigger morons than this couple will ever be and I doubt I'd have the room here to list why. Nothing biased about it. I only quote facts about CIE and in this particular case CIE must be accountable as well. Your all talking about commonsense, but yet none of you can even grasp the fact that non locals using this crossing may have difficulty with it. Commonsense has to be applied to both sides. The gates had been left open. They are meant to be closed. If they were closed then this couple wouldn't have been involved in an accident. Therefore the crossing is dangerous because its prone to being exposed to people not familiar with the area.

What a joke. You really don't think you have a massive anti CIE slant? Practically every post you make is covered in bile directed towards Irish Rail, how deluded can you be?

The only reason such crossings can be dangerous for non-locals is beacuse of the apalling standards of driving on this island, people do NOT stop at stop signs and even when they do stop at lights they completely ignore the stop lines and put the noses of their cars into pedestrian crossing areas and out of junctions.

LXFlyer

DWCommuter wrote: »

That's a good post except for the last line. If having the opinion that CIE/IE are somewhat accountable is seen as attempting to provoke an argument then that is unfortunate. Im certainly not trying to provoke any argument. However its a pity that when accidents like this happen there is a belief that the operator is in no way responsible.

Surely this in some way boils down to funding being available to eliminate crossings such as these? Funding for these projects comes from the Railway Safety Programme funded by the State.

That is not necessarily within the control of CIE/IE - we know that quite a few of these crossings have been eliminated across the network, most at quite a considerable cost.

I very much doubt funds are available to eliminate every single one of these crossings immediately but it is being done in a phased process. So surely then it should in some way be also the fault of the funder, i.e. (no pun intended) the government.

-Chris-

Vic_08 wrote: »

What a joke. You really don't think you have a massive anti CIE slant? Practically every post you make is covered in bile directed towards Irish Rail, how deluded can you be?

DWCommuter wrote: »

CIE are bigger morons than this couple will ever be...

schemingbohemia wrote: »

and your chip on the shoulder attitude to CIE isn't biased at all?

Can everyone tone it down a notch or two please, and certainly let's drop the personal attacks.

Attack the post, not the poster.

DWCommuter

Vic_08 wrote: »

What a joke. You really don't think you have a massive anti CIE slant? Practically every post you make is covered in bile directed towards Irish Rail, how deluded can you be?

The only reason such crossings can be dangerous for non-locals is beacuse of the apalling standards of driving on this island, people do NOT stop at stop signs and even when they do stop at lights they completely ignore the stop lines and put the noses of their cars into pedestrian crossing areas and out of junctions.

Do I have a massive anti CIE slant? YES.

Do I make wildly biased comments based on that? NO. My anti CIE stance is based on very credible evidence. But thats a story for another time.

Am I "deluded"? NO.

Saying that the only reason such crossings can be dangerous for non locals is due to appalling standards of driving, is just a sweeping statement. The rest of the post is irrelevant. I'm sure there will be an investigation into the Galway incident and I'm confident the results of this investigation will recommend better warning systems at this crossing.

And finally let me return to the post and my response which seemed to generate so much ire.

Have you seen how straight that stretch of track is? Absolute morons and candidates for the Darwin awards for being hit by the train. Thankfully the driver of the train was more aware than them.

Unless that post is based on knowing all the facts of this accident, then I stand over my response. As I said above the subsequent investigation will get to the bottom of it.

-Corkie-

I know exactly what happened...;)

Its all explained in this post but for technical reasons I cannot post this here..:p

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70695512&postcount=9300

dowlingm

You bad lad Corkie.

Bing has better imagery so it doesn't look like the Murrough House crossing - that's grade separated. Anyone have a better handle on exactly which crossing this was?

DWCommuter

dowlingm wrote: »

You bad lad Corkie.

Bing has better imagery so it doesn't look like the Murrough House crossing - that's grade separated. Anyone have a better handle on exactly which crossing this was?

It was the Murrough House crossing and thats the one in the link you provided. You'll also note that the gates are closed.

The grade seperated crossing is further west.

dowlingm

You're right - for some reason I managed to convince myself the little notched in part was a bridge deck.

BrianD

DWCommuter wrote: »

Nope. CIE are bigger morons than this couple will ever be and I doubt I'd have the room here to list why. Nothing biased about it. I only quote facts about CIE and in this particular case CIE must be accountable as well. Your all talking about commonsense, but yet none of you can even grasp the fact that non locals using this crossing may have difficulty with it. Commonsense has to be applied to both sides. The gates had been left open. They are meant to be closed. If they were closed then this couple wouldn't have been involved in an accident. Therefore the crossing is dangerous because its prone to being exposed to people not familiar with the area.

I fail to see how CIE can have any blame in this if the crossing was signed and gated. This kind of crossing is common the world over. Ideally it would a grade separated crossing but I'd imagine this is an expensive solution to a crossing that can be safely operated as is. Especially as it is access to one house.

It is the responsibility of road users to ensure that the crossing is used correctly i.e. gates closed not the railway operator.

Non-locals may not be familiar with the set up and that's why the warning signage is provided.

dowlingm

Bump to link to RAIU report (PDF)

The Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) are the owners of Murrough House and the land to the Galway Bay side of the railway line.

What goes on there?

V_Moth

Thankfully there were no injuries as a result of this incident. There have been far too many of these types of accidents over in the UK recently.

Just as a thought experiment, how much would it cost & maintain this type of level crossing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Level_crossing_P1210798.jpg) which would improve on the current system of gates being manually opened and closed?

Losty Dublin

V_Moth wrote: »

Thankfully there were no injuries as a result of this incident. There have been far too many of these types of accidents over in the UK recently.

Just as a thought experiment, how much would it cost & maintain this type of level crossing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Level_crossing_P1210798.jpg) which would improve on the current system of gates being manually opened and closed?

Automated crossings cost around a six figure sum. Where incidents such as that in the linked report are occurring are either back roads, private roads (As it was in this case) or access crossings between fields; these are known as accommodation crossings. To eliminate all of them will cost Irish Rail astronomical sums as you are looking at a few thousand in total, including farm crossings.

dowlingm

Being a State agency I'm sure GMIT would have no objection to the crossing being closed with a lane to an adjacent signalled crossing constructed instead because State agencies just love co-operating with each other :rolleyes:

savagecabbages

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Automated crossings cost around a six figure sum. Where incidents such as that in the linked report are occurring are either back roads, private roads (As it was in this case) or access crossings between fields; these are known as accommodation crossings. To eliminate all of them will cost Irish Rail astronomical sums as you are looking at a few thousand in total, including farm crossings.

I'm no expert on how crossings are financed, but is this six figure sum a one off payment, plus the money required to power + inspect it, or an annual six figure sum?
Just looking for a comparison vs paying someone to open + close the gates every time a train passes...

schemingbohemia

You're comparing apples and oranges there - there's nobody at this level crossing sitting there waiting to open and close the gates and there's no need for it to be automated given the costs especially with the very minimal number of people using the crossing on a daily basis.

While it seems a thorough report I didn't like the way no blame at all was attached to the driver of the car, while the sign posting could definitely have been better it was still visible to both driver and passenger, the excuse that the sign on the left was in Irish and they weren't familiar with the language doesn't hide the fact that the sign on the right ie the drivers side was in english with a Danger sign and a train in a triangle!

Well done to the train driver who was still a trainee and seems to have carried out his duties superbly.

Losty Dublin

savagecabbages wrote: »

I'm no expert on how crossings are financed, but is this six figure sum a one off payment, plus the money required to power + inspect it, or an annual six figure sum?
Just looking for a comparison vs paying someone to open + close the gates every time a train passes...

That's for fitting it, including legal fees, approach road preperations, the gate and CCTV, new signage and any required signaling adjustments. A manned crossing would also involve dismantling of the old gate with it's monitoring systems and occasionally redunancy monies for gatekeeping staff. Once installed they are cheaper to run and they pay themselves back within a year, it's the upfront payments that holds them up.

Comeagain

schemingbohemia wrote: »

You're comparing apples and oranges there - there's nobody at this level crossing sitting there waiting to open and close the gates and there's no need for it to be automated given the costs especially with the very minimal number of people using the crossing on a daily basis.

While it seems a thorough report I didn't like the way no blame at all was attached to the driver of the car, while the sign posting could definitely have been better it was still visible to both driver and passenger, the excuse that the sign on the left was in Irish and they weren't familiar with the language doesn't hide the fact that the sign on the right ie the drivers side was in english with a Danger sign and a train in a triangle!

Well done to the train driver who was still a trainee and seems to have carried out his duties superbly.

With respect.

The official report and your contribution to this thread are at odds. While you had a free rein prior to the RAIU report and many had no choice but to accept it, in the face of this report, you may as well accept the results. Unless you are qualified in a manner that allows you to contradict it with verifiable facts?

Nobody would doubt the actions of the train driver, (well done) but your persistence with a viewpoint that the official agency has dispelled, is rather futile. In conclusion, Irish Rail were at fault and not the two people in the car. I fail to see how anyone can continue down that line of thought. Some posters on the thread called it right in the beginning. The RAIU have now had their say in the matter. IE played a major role in this incident and it was their responsibility to ensure that they made every effort to prevent an incident like this. They obviously didn't.