Italian train derails in Lucerne station 22 March 2017

[whole diary]

[stuving]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Train derails in Switzerland trapping passengers
    36 minutes ago    From the section Europe

Image copyright EPA
The train at Lucerne, Switzerland, had been carrying 160 passengers

At least three people were injured when a train derailed while pulling out of a station in Switzerland, officials said.

Passengers were initially trapped when a carriage tipped on to its side at the station in Lucerne.

The incident occurred at about 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Wednesday, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) said.

There were 160 passengers on board the train, owned by Italian operator Trenitalia, which was travelling to Basel from Milan, Italy.

The fourth carriage of the train struck a power cable when it derailed, delaying rescue efforts, a spokesman for Lucerne police, Urs Wigger, said.

Lucerne police said the passengers were evacuated and at least three people required treatment and were taken to hospital. Their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Services in and out of the station were suspended for the rest of the day, SBB said.

The cause of the derailment was not immediately clear.

Fortunately this happened at low speed, so injuries were quite minor. As you can see from the picture, it wasn't a cable that the train struck but an OHLE portal. That took out the whole station's traction power, so the disruption has been enormous.

It's being reported as both "Eurocity" and  "Cisalpino", but it doesn't look to me like one of the old tilting trains. Here's another picture, showing what a great place it's in for lifting by crane:

[stuving]

This picture shows its face, from which I think it can be recognised as an Alstom ETR610 Cisalpino Due with Trenitalia's logo on its nose. So it is a tilter.

From International Business Times: Michael Buholzer/AFP/Getty Images.

Now, does that offer a specific explanation of how it derailed? Because it is an odd one - only one carriage involved, and it lurched over sideways far enough to demolish an OHLE portal and finish at an angle of more than 45^o.

[trainer]

So it is a tilter.

So it would appear. 

[Tim]

Now, does that offer a specific explanation of how it derailed? Because it is an odd one - only one carriage involved, and it lurched over sideways far enough to demolish an OHLE portal and finish at an angle of more than 45^o.

My thoughts are that this all happened at very low speed.  The only reason that the vehicles "behind" the derailed one are not derailed themselves may be because the train stopped quickly before those vehicles reached whatever (incorrectly set points/track defect/whatever) caused the derailment. 

[stuving]

The swiss investigators (SESE/SUST/SISI/STSB) are quoted as saying the train derailed at points, and they are allowing the train to be mended enough to be taken to its depot in Italy. And, looking at those pictures again, the three carriages after the capsized one are only close to the track, not running on it. Moreover, that track isn't the one the front of the train is on. So a more likely explanation is that the back of coach 4 derailed and/or the points moved under it, so it was travelling slightly sideways and when one of its bogies was blocked it rolled over. But as always, time and investigation will tell.

[Noggin]

I wonder if those units have a Swiss or Italian driver?

One hypothesis of course is that it was an Italian driver and they somehow misunderstood a nuance of the Swiss signalling or Swiss German language, and went before they should have, with the points changing beneath the train.

Of course the other possibility is that it was a simple human error.