Hacker News
points by Bluestein 1 day ago | 0 comments
Some further points: - Apparently some of the drivers involved were in training - Infra maintenance is abysmal. Budgets are poor and or misspent - Second time this happens, in 9 months

PS. They knew or should have known that the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) train was ordered (manually) to continue forward, when it should not have. There was at least one known train blocking the track. The LZB system had failed - as reported by drivers systemwide. The Control Center at Atocha station decided for trains to move forward. According to the Transportation Minister this is inexplicable - even further, trains did not follow protocols beyond this: They are supposed to engage in "marcha a la vista" (very very slow, cautious, line-of-sight only traversal to the nearest destination) when in any doubt. This was not ordered, but "normal" further travel.-

Witnesses report, riders that use that same line every day, that trains were also frequently stopped yesterday - reasons unknown. But there were warning signs.-

64 Km. were affected by a "computer failure" at 08:30 local. 08:36, the "decision" was taken from Atocha to continue operations. 25 Km. later, the crash takes place.-

550 souls involved. 68 fatalties. 90 wounded, 50 severe.-

[–] hylaride 1 day ago
I was in Spain a year ago and it felt like the high speed trains weren't running as smoothly as they were when I was last there a decade earlier. At the time I chalked it up to false memories and not to judge based on vibes, but I guess my spidey senses were accurate. It also felt like a contradiction as there was a decent amount of expansion construction that I saw.

Alas, maintenance isn't sexy for governments.

[–] otherme123 1 day ago
Post-crash investigation is much worse than with plane crashes, and also measures taken. We had an accident in 2013 (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidente_ferroviario_de_Santi...), 80 death. "Investigation" was only to decide who goes to jail, and surprise the driver goes, with another guy from Renfe Safety department. It was also decided to change the ERTMS, with 60m € budget. AFAIK, still uninstalled.

If that was a plane crash, rarely pilots are to take all the blame and even if they are the main cause, the recommendations would be to add more training, more off time, redundant measures to help the pilot or overcome their mistakes and they usually do deep investigations that end in plane redesign / retrofit, changes in routes, adding safety equipment, etc. It never goes "human error", and close the report.

With the current news this was not a manteinance issue (that might be a problem anyway), but a failure in "control tower" that put two planes in the same runway, with one of them stopped in the middle. It is beyond logic how two trains can be in the same railway closer than X distance, even with human allowing it, instead of having a TCAS-like system.

[–] AdrianB1 1 day ago
Maintenance is not sexy for anyone; there was an article posted earlier with "advice for junior engineers" that had the top advice "(1) Pick business impact over backlog". Maintenance is backlog.
[–] Rapzid 1 day ago
It's incredible the apparent level of incompetence displayed.