07-08-2011, 08:01 AM
Just an update on this one.
The traffic safety board investigation has now published the preliminary accident report, and have concluded that the likely cause of the fire in the snow shed was track work that was finished about an hour and a half before the passenger train arrived at the snow shed.
Some welding and grinding was done on the track. The grinding was done without without a spark arrester (I think that would be the translation), and this likely caused hot metal embers to get lodged in the woodwork of the snow shed, causing it to start burning after the track crew left the area, a little before the passenger train arrived. The fire cause the overhead catenary through the snow shed to fail just as the train was entering the far end of snow shed.
The railroad track authority is criticized for lacking safety routines for track work inside wooden snow sheds. The traffic safety board also level criticism against the railroad infrastructure authority and NSB (Norwegian State Railroads) for not having enough crews, engines and pumps available to get water tank cars and pumps into the area fast, and for poor communication with the on site fire and rescue personell.
The timeline of the outside fire and rescue efforts, as described by the preliminary report:
10:06 am - passenger train 62 (the Bergen-Oslo morning express) enters Hallingskeid station (where the train is not scheduled to stop), loses overhead catenary power and the engineer spots that the far (eastern) end of the snow shed is on fire. He puts the train into emergency braking, and stops a little short of the fire. Emergency evactuation of passengers commences, traffic control is notified of fire.
10:10 am - traffic control notifies 110 (fire emergency number in Norway - like 911 in the US).
10:15 am - Fire brigade and police at Voss (cloest town) notified.
10:30 am - Fire brigade commender from Voss airborne in helicopter, en route to site to get an overview.
10:30 am - Fire brigade personell arrives at locomotive shed at Voss with equipment, to be transported by rail to the fire shed. No duty train engineer or locomotive available at Voss to take the west end fire train to the incident site.
10:45 am - a small MOW locomotive arrives at the west end of the fire site, couples to rear train set to try to pull the train free of fire. Switcher has insufficient air pressure to release brakes on passenger train, too much smoke in snow shed to safely send in personell to unset brakes manually.
10:45 am - fire brigade commender arrives at site in helicopter, takes over as incident commander. Helicopter is dispatched back to Voss to get a water bucket to water bomb fire.
11:40 am - helicopter returns with water bucket, problem deploying bucket
12:30 pm - bucket fixed, fire fighting by water bombing commences
12:45 pm - passenger evacuation train with two passenger cars from the scenic Flaamsbanen line pulled by a diesel switcher arrives, passengers are embarked and sent to Voss (towards the west), arriving at Voss about 1:10pm, approximately 3 hours after the train stopped due to the fire.
12:50 pm - fire personell from Voss and police arrive by Sea King helicopter from 330 Squadron, RNoAF. The railroad authority still had not been able to get an engineer and an engine on duty at Voss locomotive shed to transport in water waggons and pumps on the rescue train. Police commander on site takes over as incident commander.
12:50 pm - fire fighting train at Aal (to the east of the fire) alerted, train arrives at area at 3 pm, is stopped with just the front of the train sticking out of the tunnel to the east of the fire site. Fire brigade commander on site is not notified that this train has a water car until at 7 pm, and at that time it is shown that the water tank car has a defect pump ....
Beween 1 pm and 4 pm further helicopter with fire buckets arrive, fire fighting continues by water bombing.
4:00 pm - police returns incident control of site to fire brigade commander, since all that remains is putting out the rest of the flames
4:10 pm - fire fighting train from Voss carrying fire truck from Voss and water car from Voss finally arrive at west end of incident site, and is added to the fire suppression effort
From the report is also clear that the onboard personell of the passenger train and the evacuation train behaved in a way that deserves praise. All passengers were evacuated from the train to the ground quickly. Two handicapped passenger were moved to the end of the snow shed furthest from the fire while the rest of the passenger were led down a steep hillside past the flaming snow shed to a gravel road, before the conductor assisted by a passenger went back, got onto the train, and retried blankets and two portable wheel chair from the train, which were used to move the two handicapped passengers to a safe area well away from the burning snow shed, and to keep them warm. Passengers who wanted to try to retrieve luggage were refused to re-enter the train, but train personell swept the train several times to ensure that all passengers were out of the train. They also kept evacuated passengers collected in one spot.
When passengers were about to embark on the evacuation train, fires started spreading along the cable duct along the ditch towards the evacuation train. On board personell from the evacuation train put out the fire in the cable duct, embarked the passengers and took them to Myrdal, where they were transferred to another train and taken to Voss.
Stein
The traffic safety board investigation has now published the preliminary accident report, and have concluded that the likely cause of the fire in the snow shed was track work that was finished about an hour and a half before the passenger train arrived at the snow shed.
Some welding and grinding was done on the track. The grinding was done without without a spark arrester (I think that would be the translation), and this likely caused hot metal embers to get lodged in the woodwork of the snow shed, causing it to start burning after the track crew left the area, a little before the passenger train arrived. The fire cause the overhead catenary through the snow shed to fail just as the train was entering the far end of snow shed.
The railroad track authority is criticized for lacking safety routines for track work inside wooden snow sheds. The traffic safety board also level criticism against the railroad infrastructure authority and NSB (Norwegian State Railroads) for not having enough crews, engines and pumps available to get water tank cars and pumps into the area fast, and for poor communication with the on site fire and rescue personell.
The timeline of the outside fire and rescue efforts, as described by the preliminary report:
10:06 am - passenger train 62 (the Bergen-Oslo morning express) enters Hallingskeid station (where the train is not scheduled to stop), loses overhead catenary power and the engineer spots that the far (eastern) end of the snow shed is on fire. He puts the train into emergency braking, and stops a little short of the fire. Emergency evactuation of passengers commences, traffic control is notified of fire.
10:10 am - traffic control notifies 110 (fire emergency number in Norway - like 911 in the US).
10:15 am - Fire brigade and police at Voss (cloest town) notified.
10:30 am - Fire brigade commender from Voss airborne in helicopter, en route to site to get an overview.
10:30 am - Fire brigade personell arrives at locomotive shed at Voss with equipment, to be transported by rail to the fire shed. No duty train engineer or locomotive available at Voss to take the west end fire train to the incident site.
10:45 am - a small MOW locomotive arrives at the west end of the fire site, couples to rear train set to try to pull the train free of fire. Switcher has insufficient air pressure to release brakes on passenger train, too much smoke in snow shed to safely send in personell to unset brakes manually.
10:45 am - fire brigade commender arrives at site in helicopter, takes over as incident commander. Helicopter is dispatched back to Voss to get a water bucket to water bomb fire.
11:40 am - helicopter returns with water bucket, problem deploying bucket
12:30 pm - bucket fixed, fire fighting by water bombing commences
12:45 pm - passenger evacuation train with two passenger cars from the scenic Flaamsbanen line pulled by a diesel switcher arrives, passengers are embarked and sent to Voss (towards the west), arriving at Voss about 1:10pm, approximately 3 hours after the train stopped due to the fire.
12:50 pm - fire personell from Voss and police arrive by Sea King helicopter from 330 Squadron, RNoAF. The railroad authority still had not been able to get an engineer and an engine on duty at Voss locomotive shed to transport in water waggons and pumps on the rescue train. Police commander on site takes over as incident commander.
12:50 pm - fire fighting train at Aal (to the east of the fire) alerted, train arrives at area at 3 pm, is stopped with just the front of the train sticking out of the tunnel to the east of the fire site. Fire brigade commander on site is not notified that this train has a water car until at 7 pm, and at that time it is shown that the water tank car has a defect pump ....
Beween 1 pm and 4 pm further helicopter with fire buckets arrive, fire fighting continues by water bombing.
4:00 pm - police returns incident control of site to fire brigade commander, since all that remains is putting out the rest of the flames
4:10 pm - fire fighting train from Voss carrying fire truck from Voss and water car from Voss finally arrive at west end of incident site, and is added to the fire suppression effort
From the report is also clear that the onboard personell of the passenger train and the evacuation train behaved in a way that deserves praise. All passengers were evacuated from the train to the ground quickly. Two handicapped passenger were moved to the end of the snow shed furthest from the fire while the rest of the passenger were led down a steep hillside past the flaming snow shed to a gravel road, before the conductor assisted by a passenger went back, got onto the train, and retried blankets and two portable wheel chair from the train, which were used to move the two handicapped passengers to a safe area well away from the burning snow shed, and to keep them warm. Passengers who wanted to try to retrieve luggage were refused to re-enter the train, but train personell swept the train several times to ensure that all passengers were out of the train. They also kept evacuated passengers collected in one spot.
When passengers were about to embark on the evacuation train, fires started spreading along the cable duct along the ditch towards the evacuation train. On board personell from the evacuation train put out the fire in the cable duct, embarked the passengers and took them to Myrdal, where they were transferred to another train and taken to Voss.
Stein