03-24-2010, 11:59 PM
A little more information has emerged in the media during the night, it seems.
Several newspapers report that according to a named manager in the transportation safety board, the roll-away apparently started a short while after a switcher had added a 16th car to a string of 15 cars on a track at the yard and uncoupled from the cars.
So (this is my inference, not part of the statement from the transportation safety board person), it seems like it might be a case of not enough wheel brakes being turned on to hold the string of cars with a safety margin, before leaving the cars on a incline. Maybe combined with one or more wheel brakes failing.
Our couplers are of a type that cannot be coupled while the cars are rolling, so the switcher crew did not have a chance to chase down the rolling cars and coupling to them at speed.
It has also emerged that the cars were not routed away from the passenger station. They were on the freight track down towards the docks all the time after they started rolling. They could have been routed towards the passenger station or out on the mainline to the south to avoid them hitting the docks, but that was never a realistic option.
It also seems that what was attempted was not to route the cars into a single ended siding on their way down the four mile valley from the yard to the curve leading into the dock area, as was initially reported.
What was attempted was activating what is described in the media as a "track lock" at an intermediate small yard at Loenga about 3 miles down the valley, but by the time the string of cars got there, they were moving with such speed (possibly as high as 100 kph) and force that they blew straight through the "track lock" thing. I assume this may be a remote controlled derail of some kind.
It also has been reported that we might have been fortunate (relatively speaking - loss of life is of course never fortunate!) about the accident happened at 1:15 pm instead of an hour later.
About 10 of the 16 cars careened off the track at the curve shown by the first star in the picture above. At the tank terminal tracks. At a little after 2 pm the daily jet fuel shuttle train between Oslo harbor and Oslo airport would likely have been there pulling a string of loaded tank cars from the tank terminal, and the loss of life could have been far worse.
The last six or so cars went on for about a quarter or half a mile, knocking over several trucks on the way, before going off the track and hitting and collapsing a small freight terminal building, killing three people and wounding four, one of them critically.
Three cars stopped in the wreckage of the building, three went through the building and over the dockside, with one of them coming to a rest across the stern of a small harbor tug or a similar boat.
During the night they have searched the building for more victims and demolished the remains of the building to make it safer to recheck the rubble, and started preparations for retrieving cars from the water to examine their brakes etc.
The dead were three men, the seriously wounded are two men (age 40 and 65) and one woman (age 35). The woman is in critical condition, the men are listed as seriously, but not life threateningly injured. A fourth injured person was treated for smaller injuries at a local clinic and released.
One of the dead and two of the seriously injured were working for the same small dock terminal company, which only has 10 employees.
My deepest sympathy for the people who lost family members, friends and colleagues yesterday. As the Ww2 poet Nordahl Grieg wrote it in his poem "May 17th 1940" : "we are so few in this country - every fallen is a friend or brother".
Also, my deepest sympathy for those on the docks who just dodged the bullet, and last night probably had the shakes - it is a sometimes sobering and frightening experience to be reminded of how quickly and unexpectedly your life can end. In particular, I expect that the two people who were on the harbor tug that had a freight car land on the stern of their boat were rather shaken.
And of course, my sympathy for those railroad employees at the yard and at the traffic control center, who last night, today, and probably for a long time to come will be wondering "should I have done something else?".
They had to make some quick decisions there and then, and probably did their best. But usually, some of the decisions made under pressure by stressed people will turn out to be less optimal than what someone with the benefit of days or weeks to calmly ponder the situation and 20/20 hindsight would have chosen to do.
That is all that is known at this time. Some of this information (especially my inference about what might have happened when the cars started rolling) may be inaccurate, and/or based on misunderstandings or misinterpretations by either the journalists or by me.
An official report with recommendations on what should or could be done to prevent a similar of this tragic accident will probably take weeks, months or even years - more likely months than weeks or years.
Stein
Several newspapers report that according to a named manager in the transportation safety board, the roll-away apparently started a short while after a switcher had added a 16th car to a string of 15 cars on a track at the yard and uncoupled from the cars.
So (this is my inference, not part of the statement from the transportation safety board person), it seems like it might be a case of not enough wheel brakes being turned on to hold the string of cars with a safety margin, before leaving the cars on a incline. Maybe combined with one or more wheel brakes failing.
Our couplers are of a type that cannot be coupled while the cars are rolling, so the switcher crew did not have a chance to chase down the rolling cars and coupling to them at speed.
It has also emerged that the cars were not routed away from the passenger station. They were on the freight track down towards the docks all the time after they started rolling. They could have been routed towards the passenger station or out on the mainline to the south to avoid them hitting the docks, but that was never a realistic option.
It also seems that what was attempted was not to route the cars into a single ended siding on their way down the four mile valley from the yard to the curve leading into the dock area, as was initially reported.
What was attempted was activating what is described in the media as a "track lock" at an intermediate small yard at Loenga about 3 miles down the valley, but by the time the string of cars got there, they were moving with such speed (possibly as high as 100 kph) and force that they blew straight through the "track lock" thing. I assume this may be a remote controlled derail of some kind.
It also has been reported that we might have been fortunate (relatively speaking - loss of life is of course never fortunate!) about the accident happened at 1:15 pm instead of an hour later.
About 10 of the 16 cars careened off the track at the curve shown by the first star in the picture above. At the tank terminal tracks. At a little after 2 pm the daily jet fuel shuttle train between Oslo harbor and Oslo airport would likely have been there pulling a string of loaded tank cars from the tank terminal, and the loss of life could have been far worse.
The last six or so cars went on for about a quarter or half a mile, knocking over several trucks on the way, before going off the track and hitting and collapsing a small freight terminal building, killing three people and wounding four, one of them critically.
Three cars stopped in the wreckage of the building, three went through the building and over the dockside, with one of them coming to a rest across the stern of a small harbor tug or a similar boat.
During the night they have searched the building for more victims and demolished the remains of the building to make it safer to recheck the rubble, and started preparations for retrieving cars from the water to examine their brakes etc.
The dead were three men, the seriously wounded are two men (age 40 and 65) and one woman (age 35). The woman is in critical condition, the men are listed as seriously, but not life threateningly injured. A fourth injured person was treated for smaller injuries at a local clinic and released.
One of the dead and two of the seriously injured were working for the same small dock terminal company, which only has 10 employees.
My deepest sympathy for the people who lost family members, friends and colleagues yesterday. As the Ww2 poet Nordahl Grieg wrote it in his poem "May 17th 1940" : "we are so few in this country - every fallen is a friend or brother".
Also, my deepest sympathy for those on the docks who just dodged the bullet, and last night probably had the shakes - it is a sometimes sobering and frightening experience to be reminded of how quickly and unexpectedly your life can end. In particular, I expect that the two people who were on the harbor tug that had a freight car land on the stern of their boat were rather shaken.
And of course, my sympathy for those railroad employees at the yard and at the traffic control center, who last night, today, and probably for a long time to come will be wondering "should I have done something else?".
They had to make some quick decisions there and then, and probably did their best. But usually, some of the decisions made under pressure by stressed people will turn out to be less optimal than what someone with the benefit of days or weeks to calmly ponder the situation and 20/20 hindsight would have chosen to do.
That is all that is known at this time. Some of this information (especially my inference about what might have happened when the cars started rolling) may be inaccurate, and/or based on misunderstandings or misinterpretations by either the journalists or by me.
An official report with recommendations on what should or could be done to prevent a similar of this tragic accident will probably take weeks, months or even years - more likely months than weeks or years.
Stein