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Italy rail crash: Andria station master 'let crash train go'

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The crash was Italy's worst rail disaster since 2009

A station master in southern Italy has admitted he allowed a train to go on a single track, minutes before a deadly collision with an oncoming train.

Twenty-three people died and 52 others were hurt in the head-on crash on a single track between Andria and Corato in the Apulia region on Tuesday.

"I let the train go, I was the one who gave the signal," Andria station master Vito Piccarreta told Italian media. But he was adamant he was not the only one at fault.

Mr Piccarreta, a railway employee with 24 years of service, was quoted by La Stampa and other newspapers as saying: "I'm not the only one at fault, everyone is blaming me. But I'm a victim too."

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While he and the station master at Corato have both been suspended as part of an investigation into multiple manslaughter, local prosecutors are also looking into safety procedures on the single-track line and why the line had not been upgraded to a double track.

"The investigation will not only look into human error, we must examine all possibilities," said prosecutor Francesco Giannella.

The rail line north of Bari relies on an antiquated phone alert system dating back to the 1960s, in common with some 600km (370 miles) of regional track elsewhere in Italy, the government says. An estimated 2,700km of Italy's rail infrastructure remains single track.

An investigator told La Reppublica newspaper that the problem was not the single track but a control system that had been automated everywhere else. While the number of trains has increased in the Bari area, the system still relies on an outdated reliance on station masters and drivers.

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The crash took place on one of Italy's many single-track lines, however most of them have upgraded safety systems

It has emerged that because rail services were late, three trains were travelling in the area at the time of the crash. Mr Piccarreta said he was unaware of the extra train travelling from Corato.

Although the bidding process to update the track and safety systems north of Bari is due to start shortly, millions of euros in EU funding allocated in 2009 to replace single-track lines has gone unspent. The company that runs the line north of Bari, Ferrotramviaria, has blamed Italian bureaucracy for the lack of progress.

Funerals for the victims of the disaster are due to begin taking place at the weekend. Among the victims were a mother and daughter found by rescuers beside the wrecked trains in the immediate aftermath of the crash.

The Andria rail crash was Italy's worst since a train carrying gas derailed in Viareggio in 2009, claiming the lives of more than 30 people who lived in the area.

At 11:05 (local time) on 12 July 2016, two passenger trains collided on a curve on the single line section between Andria and Corato, in Apulia, Italy.

Twenty-three people were killed (including one of the drivers and a person working in a nearby Olive Grove who was struck by debris); 50 people sustained major injuries.
Italy: Head-on collision near Andria

The trains involved were a service from Bari to Barletta (ET1016) and one travelling in the opposite direction, from Barletta to Bari (ET1021). They were travelling at speeds of up to 62 mph at the time of the incident.

The curve meant that neither driver had a chance to sight the other train or attempt an emergency brake application before the impact.

It was reported early on that the station master at Andria had admitted dispatching a train, allowing it onto the occupied single line, in error. The National Investigating Body corroborated that admission, adding that a third train - ET1642, running late from Corato to Andria and preceding ET1016 - had been confused with ET1016, causing said station master to assume the track between Andria and Corato was free of traffic once the late train had departed northbound for Barletta.
Recommendations

•     The Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should make the Italian legislation consistent with the European legislation with regard to the correct identification of functionally isolated networks in order to develop and improve the safety of the system in accordance with Directive 2004/49/EC.
•     The Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should ensure that accident reporting is extended to incidents – namely any event, other than an accident, which affects or may affect the safety of operation.
•     The Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should assess the advisability of reporting accidents and incidents, occurring in all public inland transport services, to an independent investigation body to allow, inter alia, the analysis of elements leading to serious accidents aimed at prevention.
•     The Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should make every effort to ensure that railway undertakings using the telephone blocking system verify that the Train Movement Regulation contains, in the case of one train following another, a direct control by third parties on the safety operation that must be carried out by the Local Traffic Manager to authorize the second train, by analogy with the control of the crossing trains which must be carried out by the on-board staff.
•     The Italian National Safety Authority for Railways and the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should make every effort to ensure the railway undertakings using the telephone blocking system verify that the filling out of the Movement Protocols is consistent with the actual situation of the rolling stock that the Local Traffic Manager is managing, avoiding the presence of blanks in the register ascribable to vehicles no longer present in the station.
•     The Italian National Safety Authority for Railways should make every effort to ensure that the infrastructure manager adopts measures to prohibit access by third parties to premises intended for staff working in the Local Traffic Manager’s room.
  
•     The Italian National Safety Authority for Railways and the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport should verify that both the infrastructure managers and the railway undertakings have adequate audit/inspection activities in place on safety critical staff, aimed at maintaining competences.

Thanks for posting that.  Is there anyway of converting an Italian PDF into an English one as I would like to have a read of the full report?