Norway Prang

["Notagunzel" <notagunzel@bigfoot.com>]

Listen here children, knowing aus.rail has nothing at all to do with Norway,
I thought all the self appointed armchair experts out there could wrap your
brain some Gen I've dug up on the Norway Prang:-

The info is from several sources:
English language content on the NSB website -
http://www.nsb.no/persont/index_en.html
Erik's Rail News - http://eriksrailnews.com
BBC News - http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Danger Ahead - http://danger-ahead.railfan.net/
Excite News - http://news.excite.com
Newsgroup "uk.railway" - news:uk.railway

The trains involved were:
*- Train No. 2302, 07.45 Trondheim - Hamar via Røros, Loco Di3 625 and two
B3 + BF11 carriages;
*- Train No. 2369, 12.30 Hamar - Rena, DMU No. BM 9214.

This is AFAIK the geography involved, but it's from multiple sources and may
not be right:

North < Trondheim -(??km)- Rena -(10ish km)- Åsta -(8 km)- Rustad -(12km)-
Elverum -(??km)- Hamar - Oslo > South

The 2 trains collided immediately south of Åsta ("160 km north of Oslo")
station.  No indication of whether Åsta is a crossing station or not.

The trains would normally pass each other at Rustad station at 13.10.

Both trains were manned by one driver and an on-board conductor.

The DMU was built in 1985, the carriages in the 1960's, and the loco, Di3
625 was built in 1965 & is a "1950's model"  AFAIK this is one of the famous
European GM's.

The safeworking system is a little hard to comprehend.  The NSB website
describes the "Safety Plant" separately to the "CTC (Centralised Traffic
Control)"  Suffice to say, the "Safety Plant" prevents a proceed aspect
being displayed on the departure signals at the same time, and ensures only
one train at a time is in the section at a time. Eriks Rail News reports
that "The line has an unusual blocking system using magnets at the end of
the trains. Detectors in the track thus tell the traffic controller when the
train has arrived at or left a station."  A poster to uk.railway said: "I'm
not sure what the equivalent is in Railtrack terms, but I think it's a
remotely controlled interlocking with track circuits only at the passing
loop area and not between. I don't know if it was a SPAD or a failure of the
remote control system."

Can't tell whether the CTC sounds is just like most CTC systems around the
world, just a remote control system, in this case from the "Hamar train
operations control center", or whether it involves vital control.  This
business of "magnets" & no track circuits has me confused.

The section of line "Røros Line" where the prang occurred is one of only a
few (NSB website) or only (Danger Ahead) section in Norway NOT fitted with
ATC, (aka ATP) but is planned to be installed "next year" (NSB) or "in the
summer" (Excite News) at a cost of between 10 to 15 million Norwegian
kroner.

Both trains were fully ATC equipped.

The accident was the most serious on the Norwegian train system since 1975,
when 27 people were killed in a crash in the same part of the country.

The media has made much mileage over the fact that apparently the train
controllers observed the trains heading towards each other, but couldn't
find the correct mobile phone number to contact the trains.

--
Mr Notagunzel.
Rail Transportation Connoisseur
notagunzel@bigfoot.com
(Regrets to announce there will be no further moves at
http://www.geocities.com/nota_gunzel
until further notice is issued from this office)