The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Archived the case of the train accident between Vigo and Porto in which four people died and 47 were injured

2021-03-26T04:53:14.593Z


The investigation concludes that the accident, when entering the O Porriño station, was due to an excess speed of the driver, who died in the derailment


The civil route is still open for the victims, but the judge has shelved his criminal investigation of the derailment of the Vigo-Oporto train in September 2016, which resulted in four deaths and 47 injuries.

The head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction number two of O Porriño, the town of Pontevedra in which the accident occurred, concludes after four and a half years that it was exclusively due to the speeding with which the driver entered the station and that his criminal responsibility was extinguished with his death in the event.

Judge Loreto Carro agrees the provisional dismissal, with reservation of civil actions to the injured, although there is still an appeal of the order for the families of the deceased and the 47 injured, 13 of them seriously.

According to this resolution, the expert evidence leads to the conclusion that that September 9, the

Celtic Train

between Galicia and Portugal was traveling at a speed of 118 kilometers per hour at the moment of the collision, when the maximum allowed was 30. "The Responsibility for such speeding resides exclusively in the recklessness of the driver ”, defends the judge,“ the result of driving inattentive to the circumstances of the road and its signaling ”.

"It could even be indicated that, if the route speed marked generally in the section had been observed, the train would not have derailed", predicts the instructor.

In September 2016, there were maintenance work on the O Porriño route and drivers had to slow down to change lanes.

If the driver, an employee of the Comboios de Portugal company, had survived the accident, the events could have constituted several crimes of homicide and 47 crimes of injuries due to serious professional negligence, the order says.

No braking or signaling fault

Technicians from the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) ruled out "both a train braking problem and a signaling failure, as no anomaly was detected in the tests carried out," settles the judicial brief released this Thursday by the Court Superior of Xustiza de Galicia.

The experts also agreed that in the recent history of the line there were "a series of repetitive circumstances in the section of approach to O Porriño that could have generated a habit and a feeling of excessive confidence" in the driver, a professional 50 years of age and 21 of experience on the tracks.

The other deaths from this train that was traveling with 65 people on board were an auditor, a Renfe employee, and two passengers.

In his journey, despite the signs on the road, the driver "did not reduce speed to pass through the entrance changes without exceeding 30 kilometers per hour, but the train continued to increase its speed," states the judicial document that resolves the provisional file of the case in which the victims are sued against several insurers and Comboios de Portugal.

Upon reaching the station entrance, "the train was circulating at a real speed of 110 kilometers per hour" and a few meters later it derailed and "collided frontally against the abutment of the overpass of the N-120 highway."

Due to the speed, "it ran over several signaling cabinets and electricity poles, and brushed against the concrete gutter and a stone wall" until it ended up on track 5.

  • Speeding is revealed as the cause of the derailment of the Vigo-Oporto train [| 4/09/2016]

  • Brussels opens an infringement procedure against Spain for rail safety [01/24/19]

"Without any kind of doubt," the magistrate concluded, the state of the track or train "had no impact whatsoever on the occurrence of the accident, nor on the aggravation of its consequences."

At that time, the damaged railway model was already over 30 years old (a Renfe S-592 series diesel railcar), but the vehicles had undergone engine changes and various refurbishments.

Track under renovation

The road, a route from the 19th century, was also under construction, so drivers were instructed to slow down in certain sections.

The Vigo-Oporto service was provided in a combined way between Renfe and the company Comboios de Portugal, to which the Spanish company had transferred the trains on a rental basis since 2010. According to the judge, the facilities “complied with the regulations of safety or technical standards followed in the railway field, without there being the slightest indication, taking into account the information provided by the legal experts, that some element of the infrastructure could have been a cause or factor influencing the accident ”.

"The direct, immediate cause that decidedly triggered the unfortunate accident was speeding," insists the judge, "since the deceased driver did not comply with the order transmitted by signal 1532," which forced him to reduce to 30 kilometers per time to deviate to track three.

In addition, "the fact of having recognized the optical and acoustic signals of the ASFA (Announcement of Signals and Automatic Braking) without taking any action, prevented the application of the emergency brake," he concludes.

The judicial resolution also states that the day before the accident, on September 8, at the command post for Galicia, located in Ourense, a type of failure considered serious was detected in O Porriño: a route was shown as "free" of trains when it was really busy.

But that was not the problem.

"Communication between those responsible for the circulation and maintenance of the infrastructure was resolved by scrupulously following the established procedure," defends Loreto Carro.

On the morning of the 9th, to resolve the alleged anomaly, two workers came to the station.

They checked the lanes and "checked the voltages in the signaling cabinet", but found no errors on site.

They carried out, as is customary, several steps and train crossings through the station tracks to check it, and "in none of the cases was the ruling reproduced."

The Celtic Train 420, that is, the accident victim, was chosen for the tests by one of the workers at the Ourense command post and authorized by his boss (who was investigated in the court case) to verify that the failure.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-03-26

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-01T05:04:58.251Z
News/Politics 2024-03-01T10:24:37.181Z
News/Politics 2024-03-02T05:04:05.070Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.