SPAIN TRAIN CRASH

High Speed Could Have Caused Spain Train Crash

Video: Spain Train Crash - Dozens Killed And Injured

Published on Jul 25, 2013 - The number of people dead after a train derailed in one of Spain's worst rail disasters has reportedly risen as high as 77. Many more are said to be critically injured and Spanish media reported emergency services were attempting to rescue several people still trapped inside carriages.

Video: Spain train Crash kills and injures dozens 
Published on Jul 25, 2013 - Emergency crews and investigators combed the scene of a train derailment on Thursday morning (July 25) that killed at least 77 people and injured 131 others in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. In one of Europe's worst rail disasters, the train derailed outside the ancient northwestern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday evening. Bodies covered in blankets lay next to the overturned carriages as smoke billowed from the wreckage. Firefighters clambered over the twisted metal trying to get survivors out of the windows, while ambulances and fire engines surrounded the scene.

Video: Driver Of High Speed Train That Crashed In
 Spain Now Under For Investigation
Published on Jul 25, 2013/July 25, 2013 BBC News

Transportation Safety
Transportation safety is concerned with the protection of life and property through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of transportation.

Spain Train Crash. 
By Silvia Taules and Doreen Carvajal
Published: July 25, 2013

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain — A veteran train conductor with a zest for speed was arrested in his hospital room in northwest Spain where investigators are trying to determine whether reckless behavior caused a train wreck that left dozens of passengers dead, the authorities said on Friday. The conductor, Francisco José Garzón Amo, 52, is the focus of a criminal investigation, according to Jaime Iglesias, the national police commander from Galicia who said at a news conference that investigators were waiting for his condition to improve to start questioning him about Wednesday's crash. A judicial inquiry, he added, could also take place in the hospital where he is recovering….Read full story.

American Women Among 80 killed in Spain Train Crash; Diver Detained. By Catherine Chomiak, Becky Bratu and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News 

The driver of the train that crashed in Spain, killing at least 80 people including one American, was detained and put under formal investigation Thursday after security video showed the train derailed after speeding around a tight curve. Excessive speed has been identified as the likely main cause of the accident, official sources told Reuters as hospitals treated dozens of injured passengers, including at least five Americans. After the train derailed on the curve, where the speed limit was 49 mph, the driver, identified as 52-year-old Francisco José Garzón Amo by Spanish daily El Pais, spoke by telephone with the train operator's emergency service: "I should've been going 80 [49 mph] and I was doing 190 [118 mph]," he said. A Virginia woman was among those killed in the derailment, NBCWashington.com  confirmed. Ana-Maria Cordoba worked as a benefits specialist for the Arlington Diocese. …Read full Story.

80 dead in Spain crash; video catches train's final moments. By Al Goodman, Laura Smith-Spark and Laura Perez Maestro, CNN. 
Santiago de Compostela, Spain (CNN) -- The train races into view, and in the space of a heartbeat, the cars derail and crash into a wall of concrete, flipping onto their sides and skidding along the track with terrifying speed and force. Security footage shows the horror of the moment an express train derailed as it hurtled around a curve in northwestern Spain on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Spanish government in the Galicia region, speaking on routine condition of anonymity, confirmed 80 people have died in the crash. A woman from Arlington, Virginia, is among the dead. And at least five other U.S. citizens were injured, Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said….Read full story

Spain train traveling twice the speed limit. By Michael Winter and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY
The train that derailed on a curve Wednesday night in northwestern Spain may have been traveling at more than twice the speed limit, media outlets reported Thursday. The veteran driver, who was injured, is being formally investigated amid reports that he had bragged on Facebook about routinely speeding. Officials said he did not test positive for alcohol or drugs. Authorities and rail experts cautioned that speed-control systems might also have failed. The Associated Press analyzed video of the crash and said the train was going between 89 mph and 119 mph on the stretch of track that has a limit of about 50 mph. The Spanish newspaper El Mundoalso reported that the train may have approached speeds of up to 119 mph before it flew off the tracks and smashed into a retaining wall. The U.S. State Department said that one American was among the 80 who died….Read full story

Father of American killed: Spain train crash "pathetic". 

The father of the American woman killed in Spain's worst train crash in decades Wednesday calls the situation "difficult" and "pathetic," and says he's very upset and confused. Police examining the remains of those killed in the derailment lowered the death count Friday from 80 people in all to 78, and said the count could change as they identify body parts and associate them with others. Antonio de Amo, of Spain's national police, says the changes have happened as forensic scientists have matched body parts with each other. He told reporters Friday that 72 bodies have been identified so far and that six remain to be identified. Investigators, meanwhile, have taken possession of the "black boxes" of the train, which hurtled at high-speed along a curve, then derailed. Gustavo Angel confirmed to CBS News that his daughter, Ana-Maria Cordoba, 47, of Arlington, Va., perished in the crash. He said he was told of her death by authorities Thursday afternoon. Angel said Ana-Maria was on holiday in Santiago de Compostela for two weeks with her husband and daughter. They were visiting the couple's son, an exchange student at a local university. Ana-Maria's husband has skull injuries and her daughter has a broken leg, and both are hospitalized, Angel said, adding that the son wasn't on the train....Read   full   story

Videos: Spain Train Crash

Video1: cctv footage spaintrain crash full raw video- raw cctv footage Accident. Published on Jul 25, 2013 -  CCTV of Spain train crash - horrible footage of impact - Truthloader

Video 2: Raw Footage: SpainTrain CRASH Near Santiago De Compostela. 

Video 3: Three days mourning after train crash in Spain, declares PM Rajoy. Published on Jul 25, 2013 - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has declared three days of official mourning after the the…

Video 4: Train crash sparkssolidarity across Santiago de Compostela
Video 5: Spain train crash: Twisted carriages after train derails at high-speed 

High Speed Train Technology
Video 1: Mass Transit - Why we need a good transportation systems.
Video 2: China and Transportation - China's economy has been the envy of the world for a decade, but what about its transportation system? With the largest population in the world and growing, maybe we should be looking at its mobility. The economic superpower has built a 21st century road system to keep up with its new appetite for cars.
Video 3: China High Speed Train Development - China has experienced rapid expansion of its high speed rail network over the past decade. It is evidence of the improvement of China's scientific and technological level as the country becomes stronger.
Video 4: New Technology Used in High Speed Train - The high-speed railway uses new equipment and materials to help it keep running smoothly despite the region's sometimes harsh conditions. And by making travel easier, it is also expected to help revitalize the region. James Kim explains. The high-speed railway can travel at 350 kilometres per hour in minus forty degrees Celsius.
Video 5: Japan's High Speed Train - As Japan trials a new even faster high-speed train, FT Tokyo bureau chief Mure Dickie reports on the country's love affair with its trains and the challenge facing the national railway operators to sell their systems overseas against tough competition.
Video 6: 2020 Kuala Lumpur to Singapore High Speed Train -  A Dream of the Future.

Other Related Articles
1. Transport Canada introduces emergency rules for train safety, By Mike De Souza, Post Media News. Transport Canada announced six emergency rail safety rules Tuesday in response to the Lac-Megantic runaway train disaster, but its senior officials declined to answer direct questions about whether it had failed in previous years to respond to weaknesses highlighted both in internal and external audits.
2. Transportation Safety Board of Canada deploys a team of investigators to an air accident near Baldwin, Ontario. RICHMOND HILL, on, July 25, 2013 /CNW/ - The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is deploying a team of investigators to the site of an air accident involving a Cessna 185 near Baldwin, Ontario. The TSB will gather information and assess the occurrence. The TSB is an independent agency that advances transportation safety by investigating occurrences in the marine, pipeline, rail and air modes of transportation. It is not the function of the Board to assign fault or determine civil or criminal liability. SOURCE Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
3. Transportation Safety Board calls for immediate rail policy changes, By Staff - The Canadian Press. MONTREAL – The Transportation Safety Board is calling for two immediate changes in rail policy in the wake of the Lac-Megantic catastrophe. The agency isn’t waiting for the results of its multi-month investigation, which has just begun, to make the recommendations.
4. US Senator asks for GAO report on oil, gas transportation safety, Washington (Platts)  - 22Jul2013/138 pm EDT/1738 GMT. US Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller has asked the General Accountability Office to examine the impact of shale oil and gas development on pipelines, rail and other transportation infrastructure and safety, in light of the Lac Megantic, Quebec, train disaster. In a letter Friday to GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, the West Virginia Democrat said booming domestic production from the shale revolution has increased the transportation of hazardous products through existing infrastructure and led to the construction of new infrastructure. "The recent derailment of a freight train in Canada carrying crude oil from shale reserves in North Dakota illustrated the potential deadly consequences of what can happen when something goes wrong during transport of these products," Rockefeller wrote.

ELECTRIC RAILWAY is an electrically powered railway system. Electrically powered trains include high-speed passenger trains; some goods trains; and the underground and elevated systems and trams found in certain cities. The electricity to run an electric train comes from an external source – a central power plant – rather than from an engine or generator on board the train.

Electric trains have many advantages. They are quieter than other trains and do not produce smoke or exhaust. Coal, gas, oil, nuclear power, or water can generate electricity for an electric train. In contrast, diesel trains run only on diesel oil. Electric trains also travel faster than any other trains. The world’s fastest is France’s TGV (train a grande vitesse, or high-speed train). It travels up to about 300 kilometres per hour. Engineers are developing faster electric trains called maglev (magnetic levitation) trains. German and Japanese test models of these  trains reach speeds of from about 400 to 500 kilimetres per hour.

Electric railways provide intercity service (service between cities). These railways also offer infra-urban or commuter service, which carries passengers within cities and between cities and they suburbs. Electric railways are common in European countries and in Japan.

Kinds of electric railways. Most intercity electric trains receive power through an overhead wire called a catenary. In the overhead  wire system, a steel framework connects a car, usually a locomotive, to a catenary. The framework, called a pantograph, delivers electric current from the wire to the locomotives propulsion system. This system includes the traction motors. Traction motors power the driving wheels which actually move the locomotive.

Intercity electric trains have one or more locomotives that pull carriages or goods trucks. Most electric locomotives weight between 90 and 180 metric ton and provide about 4,000 to 5,000 kilowatts. They can reach speed of over 240 kilometres per hour.

Some intra-urban railcars have their own traction motors, which range from 90 to 210 kilowatts. Others are driven by locomotives or by other railcars that have traction motors. Infra-urban railcars reach speeds of about 80 to 120 kilometres per hour. An electrified third rail delivers electricity to most infra-urban electric trains.

Trains using a third rail have metal plates called shoes. Two shoes attach to the bottom of a locomotive or railcar. The shoes slide along the third rail, delivering electric current to the car’s propulsion system.

Unlike most electric trains, a maglev train has little or no contact with a track or wires. Maglev trains have special magnets in the cars and electrically changed coils in the guideway (track) create a powerful magnetic force. This force lifts the cars above the guideway. Separate electric currents in the coils create a shifting magnetic field that propels the train forward. Some maglev trains have been tested at high speeds. But only low-speed maglev trains were in use in the early 1990’s, serving parts of Europe.

Hostory. In the early 1800’s, the Scotish inventor Robert Davidson built the first full-sized electric locomotive. But the high cost of producing electricity made it too expensive for general use by railways. The development of the electric generator in the mid-1800’s provided high voltage current at a low cost.

The first commercial electric street railway began operation in Lichterfelde, German, in 1881.  In 1887, Frank Sprague, an American inventor, built the Union Passenger Railway in Richmond, Virginia. This was the first large electric railways system.

Electrification of intercity track took place on a large scale in Europe in the late 1940’s. The first of the modern high-speed electric trains, Japan’s Shinkansen (known as the “bullet train”), began  running in 1964. The TGV line in France opened in 1981.

Related articles: Diesel engine, Elevated railway, Locomotive, Railway, Tram and Trolleybus, railway electrification system and Underground railway.

Early Story and Innovations

Pre-Steam -The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre (3.7 mi) Diolkos wagonway, which transported boats across the Corinth isthmus in Greece during the 6th century BC. Trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos ran for over 600 years. Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a stained-glass window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, dating from around 1350. In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemphaulage rope, and was operated by human or animal power. The line still exists, albeit in updated form, and is one of the oldest railways still to operate. By 1550, narrow gauge railways with wooden rails were common in mines in Europe. By the 17th century, wooden wagonways were common in the United Kingdom for transporting coal from mines to canal wharfs for transshipment to boats. The world's oldest working railway, built in 1758, is the Middleton Railway in Leeds. In 1764, the first gravity railroad in the United States was built in Lewiston, New York. The first permanent tramway was the Leiper Railroad in 1810. The first iron plate railway made with cast iron plates on top of wooden rails, was taken into use in 1768. This allowed a variation of gauge to be used. At first only balloon loopscould be used for turning, but later, movable points were taken into use that allowed for switching.  From the 1790s, iron edge rails began to appear in the United Kingdom. In 1803, William Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway in south London, arguably the world's first horse-drawn public railway. The invention of the wrought iron rail by John Birkinshaw in 1820 allowed the short, brittle, and often uneven, cast iron rails to be extended to 15 feet (4.6 m) lengths. These were succeeded by steel in 1857.

Age of steam - The development of the steam engine during the Industrial revolution in the United Kingdom spurred ideas for mobile steam locomotives that could haul trains on tracks. James Watt's patented steam engines of 1769 (revised in 1782) were heavy low-pressure engines which were not suitable for use in locomotives. However, in 1804, using high-pressure steam, Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first locomotive-hauled train inMerthyr Tydfil, United Kingdom. Accompanied with Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success, some of the brittle cast-iron plates. Two years later, the first passenger horse-drawn railway was opened nearby between Swansea and Mumbles.

Earliest British steam railways - In 1811, John Blenkinsop designed the first successful and practical railway locomotive — a rack railway worked by a steam locomotive between Middleton Colliery and Leeds on the Middleton Railway. The locomotive, Salamanca, was built the following year. In 1825, George Stephensonbuilt the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north east England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, he built The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials. This success led to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the United Kingdom, the United States and much of Europe. In 1830, the first intercity railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened. The gauge was that used for the early wagonways and had been adopted for the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) width became known as the international standard gauge, used by about 60% of the world's railways. This spurred the spread of rail transport outside the UK. By the early 1850s Britain had over 7,000 miles of railway, 'a stunning achievement given that only twenty years had elapsed since the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Early railroads in the US - Railroads (as they are known in the US) were built on a far larger scale than those in Continental Europe, both in terms of the distances covered and also in the loading gauge adopted, which allowed for heavier locomotives and double-deck trains. The railroad era in the United States began in 1830 when Peter Cooper's locomotive, Tom Thumb, first steamed along 13 miles (21 km) of Baltimore and Ohio railroad track. In 1833, the nation's second railroad ran 136 miles (219 km) from Charleston to Hamburg in South Carolina. Not until the 1850s, though, did railroads offer long distance service at reasonable rates. A journey from Philadelphia to Charleston involved eight different gauges, which meant that passengers and freight had to change trains seven times. Only at places like Bowling Green, Kentucky, the railroads were connected to one another.The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that opened in 1830 was the first to evolve from a single line to a network in the United States. By 1831, a steam railway connected Albany and Schenectady, New York, a distance of 16 miles, which was covered in 40 minutes. The years between 1850 and 1890 saw phenomenal growth in the US railroad system, which at its peak constituted one third of the world's total mileage. Although the American Civil War placed a temporary halt to major new developments, the conflict did demonstrate the enormous strategic importance of railways at times of war. After the war, major developments include the first elevated railway built in New York in 1867 as well as the symbolically important first transcontinental railroadcompleted in 1869....read full story.