Human error. There was a train stopped in the railway (maybe because it had an issue, still to be cleared). The system knew of this, so it put a red light which was being respected by the other trains to avoid a crash.
The second train, was waiting in a red light but at a certain moment, a human operator told the train driver to ignore the red light and move. The train driver then started the train despite the red light and this is the end result.
Based on my experience with automated systems that sounds like a situation where the operator has to routinely ignore the red light because it doesn’t work correctly.
A system than can not be overridden comes with it’s own problems. Also, updating such a system for an entire rail system every x years would cost a ginormous amount of money which means you’ll have to cut somewhere else.
He says that around 8:30am this morning, the LZB controlling system failed due to communications issues, leaving no coverage for just over 60km of the track, which in turn triggered an automatic stop for six trains on that stretch.
But around 8:36, the Adif control centre issued a manual instruction to override the warning and let the traffic resume.
He heavily suggests that this “inexplicable” decision should not have been made, as trains should have remained under strict orders not to move.
I assume the culprit is cost cutting as usual?
Human error. There was a train stopped in the railway (maybe because it had an issue, still to be cleared). The system knew of this, so it put a red light which was being respected by the other trains to avoid a crash.
The second train, was waiting in a red light but at a certain moment, a human operator told the train driver to ignore the red light and move. The train driver then started the train despite the red light and this is the end result.
Based on my experience with automated systems that sounds like a situation where the operator has to routinely ignore the red light because it doesn’t work correctly.
Any system in the modern day that relies on one person seeing a light or else 68 people die feels like it has some corners cut somewhere.
Like, roads?
A system than can not be overridden comes with it’s own problems. Also, updating such a system for an entire rail system every x years would cost a ginormous amount of money which means you’ll have to cut somewhere else.
Or increase revenue by taxing wealthy and corporations more.
The Guardian