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Horrific Train Crash in Belgium..

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Comments

  • #32
    griffdaddy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,414 ✭✭✭griffdaddy


    Mousey- wrote: »
    the last one ot to do with laungages....1 side of the country speaks french the other dutch.

    led to the track operators putting two trains heading straight for eachother i n 2001

    (Serious Response)If that turns out to be the case this time this whole incident is gonna be used as political fodder for the split of the country. It's amazing how much difference the languages and culture make, the populations are almost completely separate and independant of each other. (Serious Response)





    (Afterhours response) I'm just happy it wasn't a train full of Duvel colliding with a train of Belgian fries. (Afterhours Response)


  • #33
    meathstevie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,778 ✭✭✭meathstevie


    No such thing as a Belgian nation either to be honest with you. The country is like a long seperated couple still living in the one house. One partner is Flanders the other Wallonia. And I should know, I grew up there.

    Quite possible the "ordinary" railway services have suffered underinvesting and insufficient upgrading when huge funding was thrown at the likes of Thalys, TGV and Eurostar but should still be safe and sound infratructure and rolling stock wise. I would not be one bit surprised if the ongoing investigation is going to identify hunan error is the cause of the horrific accident. Also keep in ind that the accident happended during heavy snowfall with very bad visibility which could explain that one of the drivers hasn't seen certain signal lights.


  • #34
    m@cc@
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,526 ✭✭✭m@cc@


    [quote=[Deleted User];64488919]I'm not taking it 'so' seriously, I'm saying it's seriously poor journalism to make such a basic mistake. Irish people get offended at the use of 'Eire' but you think it's grand to totally mess up the name of a country?[/QUOTE]


    I think it's just due to the similarity in the sound of the words as opposed to any slur on the country of Belgium.
    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on


  • #35
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    Driver survived one of the trains by jumping clear before impact.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7029015.ece


  • #36
    Aidric
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,598 ✭✭✭✭Aidric


    Was listening to Tony Connollys report on this on RTE yesterday. The language problem was offered up as the reason which is quite frankly hard to fathom when so many peoples safety is at stake. A very embarrassing episode for Belgium. The sad thing is there was a precedent for this.


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  • #37
    bonerm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,594 ✭✭✭bonerm


    Run_to_da_hills wrote: »
    Driver survived one of the trains by jumping clear before impact.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7029015.ece

    He'd have been better off sitting in the carriage. His life won't be worth living now.


  • #38
    Kirnsy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 970 ✭✭✭Kirnsy


    bonerm wrote: »
    He'd have been better off sitting in the carriage. His life won't be worth living now.

    :confused:

    It was hardly his fault?


  • #39
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    bonerm wrote: »
    He'd have been better off sitting in the carriage. His life won't be worth living now.

    That is only if he is proven negligent.


  • #40
    Wazdakka
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,467 ✭✭✭Wazdakka


    Run_to_da_hills wrote: »
    That is only if he is proven negligent.

    Its a train....

    It's not like he took a wrong turn or could have swerved around the other one...


  • #41
    enda1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,165 ✭✭✭enda1


    bonerm wrote: »
    He'd have been better off sitting in the carriage. His life won't be worth living now.

    What use would another lost life have been?


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  • #42
    bonerm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,594 ✭✭✭bonerm


    I agree with the added loss of life argument but either-way (regarding neglience) it just doesn't look good for him.

    Further, I wonder did he take the time to recommend his own imminent plan of action to his passengers before alighting the train?


  • #43
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    [quote=[Deleted User];64485821]
    One thing that struck me though.....
    WHY WHY WHY does nobody seem to know the difference between the noun BELGIUM and the adjective BELGIAN? My homepage is the BBC News website and there's a link for 'more on the Belgium news crash.' Just saw on another website: "One of the trains was providing a local Flemish service, while the other was travelling towards the southern Belgium city of Liege." The Belgium city? Would they have said the England city of London or the France city of Paris? What kind of cretins are employed as journalists these days?[/QUOTE]

    I hear you.

    Don't get me started on confused contractions and possessives in studies on genocide and natural disasters. I mean fatalities shmatalities: fine, but is a little editorial nous too much to ask for?
    Post edited by Boards.ie: Mike on


  • #44
    mathie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,103 ✭✭✭mathie


    enda1 wrote: »
    What use would another lost life have been?

    Tell that to Texans.


  • #45
    Elsa Young Minion
    Posts: 6,645 ✭✭✭ Elsa Young Minion


    Wazdakka wrote: »
    Its a train....

    It's not like he took a wrong turn or could have swerved around the other one...

    So? That doesn't mean he wasn't at fault. It wasn't an automatic, driverless train. It didn't drive itself into the path of the other train. We don't know what happened as yet, but I wouldn't assume he was blameless. He either ignored the red light, didn't see it or it was faulty. That article is pretty misleading though - it actually says he jumped into the carriage, not outside the train. Whatever happened, I'd hate to be in his shoes right now.
    I think SNCB are at least partly to blame - what's the point of having these high tech tracks when half the trains are not equipped to take advantage of the technology? This is SNCB's response
    Marc Descheemaecker from SNCB said: "In 2005 we opted for our own system and decided to equip all the trains but that cannot be done all at once."

    It's now 2010 - FIVE years later and they still haven't finished? A pretty pathetic, but not at all surprising response from SNCB.

    There doesn't seem to be any indication that language was a factor this time around, but I used to be surprised at the low standards of French spoken by Flemish drivers and vice versa. I remember once travelling to Antwerp from Brussels and the driver's Flemish was so poor that everyone in the carriage burst out laughing and said they hadn't understood a word. It was funny at the time, but perhaps wouldn't have been so amusing if it had been an emergency announcement.
    stovelid wrote: »
    I hear you.

    Don't get me started on confused contractions and possessives in studies on genocide and natural disasters. I mean fatalities shmatalities: fine, but is a little editorial nous too much to ask for?

    I get the sarcasm but that is correct. I have no idea why anyone thinks a story about a tragedy means all professionalism can go out of the window. It's not as if I'm complaining that someone who was interviewed after having been thrown from a carriage and who spoke English as a second language had said Belgium instead of Belgian. This is a British journalist who probably wasn't even there. The press is supposed to be reliable and accurate - making such an elementary mistake puts the credibility of the BBC at risk. They're speculating about the cause of the accident, yet couldn't even get the adjective right. The excuses people make for shoddy work are unbelievable. I guess that's how people get away with it. If I submitted a PhD thesis on genocides and spelled 'Rwanda' as 'Rewanda' I can assure you that saying I was upset and distressed while writing it wouldn't be accepted as an excuse. It would most likely be seen as being careless and disrespectful, which is how I see this mistake. Nobody is forced to be a journalist. If spelling things correctly is too much to ask, maybe these people should not be working for national newspapers.


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