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Wrong-side Failure
A wrong-side failure describes a failure condition in a piece of railway signalling equipment that results in an unsafe state. A typical example would be a signal showing a 'proceed' aspect (e.g. green) when it should be showing a 'stop' or 'danger' aspect, resulting in a "false clear". (The converse is a right-side failure, where even with any reduction the resulting state is safe overall.) Example of how a wrong-side failure may occur Consider a relay that has to energize to show a green light. If a wire breaks, or the battery is drained, then the relay will de-energize and the signal will show a red light, which is fail-safe. If a stray wire from another circuit touches the wire connected to that same relay, then that would be a wrong side failure, which is potentially dangerous. This stray wire can be guarded against by ensuring that the insulation on the relay wire is of good quality, and that all terminals are locked away. In addition, the relay may be double-switch ...
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Railway Signalling
Railway signalling (), also called railroad signaling (), is a system used to control the movement of railway traffic. Trains move on fixed rails, making them uniquely susceptible to collision. This susceptibility is exacerbated by the enormous weight and inertia of a train, which makes it difficult to quickly stop when encountering an obstacle. In the UK, the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 introduced a series of requirements on matters such as the implementation of interlocked block signalling and other safety measures as a direct result of the Armagh rail disaster in that year. Most forms of train control involve movement authority being passed from those responsible for each section of a rail network (e.g. a signalman or stationmaster) to the train crew. The set of rules and the physical equipment used to accomplish this determine what is known as the ''method of working'' (UK), ''method of operation'' (US) or ''safeworking'' (Aus.). Not all these methods require the use ...
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Cowan Rail Disaster
The Cowan rail accident occurred at 7:20pm on 6 May 1990 when the 3801 Limited special steam passenger train returning from the Morpeth Jazz Festival was struck in the rear by the following CityRail inter-urban passenger service. The steam train had stalled while attempting to climb the steep gradient from the Hawkesbury River to Cowan, New South Wales, and it was found that sand applied to the rails to regain traction had interfered with the signals and given the following train a false clear indication. Overview The crash occurred approximately south of Brooklyn, New South Wales, near the Boronia No. 3 tunnel. The railway line at this point, known as the Cowan Bank, is 2.5% (1 in 40) grade and, as the special hauled by steam locomotive 3801 passed southwards through the No. 3 tunnel, the wheels of the locomotive started to slip. The driver of 3801 applied sand to the rails to improve traction, but the train came to a complete stop approximately 50 metres clear of ...
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Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail safety regulations, administer railroad assistance programs, conduct research and development in support of improved railroad safety and national rail transportation policy, provide for the rehabilitation of Northeast Corridor rail passenger service, and consolidate government support of rail transportation activities. The FRA is one of ten agencies within DOT concerned with intermodal transportation. It operates through seven divisions under the offices of the Administrator and Deputy Administrator. These divisions are: Financial Management and Administration, Chief Counsel, Civil Rights, Public Affairs, Public Engagement, Railroad Policy and Development, and Safety. It has a staff of about 850. Function All passenger and freight ra ...
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Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States. The publication has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by the Times Mirror Company. The newspaper’s coverage emphasizes California and especially Southern California stories. In the 19th century, the paper developed a reputation for civic boosterism and opposition to labor unions, the latter of which led to the bombing of its headquarters in 1910. The paper's profile grew substantially in the 1960s under publisher Otis Chandler, who adopted a more national focus. In recent decades the paper's readership has declined, and it has been beset by a series of ownership changes, staff reductions, and other controversies. In January 2018, the paper's staff voted to unionize a ...
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2008 Chatsworth Train Collision
The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occurred at 4:22:23 p.m. PDT (23:22:23 UTC) on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. The scene of the accident was a curved section of single track on the Metrolink Ventura County Line just east of Stoney Point. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the cause of the collision, the Metrolink train ran through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The NTSB blamed the Metrolink train's engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, for the collision, concluding that he was distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty. This mass casualty event brought a massive emergency response by both the city and county of Los Angeles, but the nature and ...
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Hinton Train Collision
The Hinton train collision was a rail transport accident that occurred in Canada on 8 February 1986. Twenty-three people were killed in a collision between a Canadian National Railway freight train and a Via Rail passenger train called the '' Super Continental'', including the engine crews of both trains. It was the deadliest rail disaster in Canada since the Dugald accident of 1947, which had thirty-one fatalities, and was not surpassed until the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013, which resulted in 47 deaths. After 56 days of testimony at a public inquiry, a commission concluded that the collision was caused by the freight head end crew failing to stop their train because of incapacitation or other unknown factors, while the conductor in the caboose failed to use the emergency brake to stop the train. The report also highlighted serious flaws in the culture and safety practices at Canadian National Railway. Background The collision occurred on a stretch of Canadian Natio ...
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Livraga Derailment
The Livraga derailment is the first and only railway accident to date that ever happened on the Italian high speed rail network. It took place on 6 February 2020 when a high-speed train derailed at Livraga, Lombardy, Italy. Two people died and 31 were injured. Accident Train 9595 was the first southbound service of any day in Italy's high speed railways, scheduled to start from Milan at 5:10 and to arrive in Salerno at 11:27. On 6 February 2020 the train, run by Frecciarossa 1000 trainset no. 21, entered the Milan-Bologna high-speed railway and reached its top speed as usual. Not long after departure it reached the "posto di movimento Livraga", a site equipped with passing loops where RFI maintenance vehicles are parked, named after the nearby town of Livraga. For reasons under investigation, on that morning point number 5 (which connects the main line to the passing loop) was in diverted position without anyone knowing. At 05:34 local time (04:34 UTC), upon passing on point nu ...
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ETCS
The European Train Control System (ETCS) is the signalling and control component of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). It is a replacement for legacy train protection systems and designed to replace the many incompatible safety systems currently used by European railways. The standard was also adopted outside Europe and is an option for worldwide application. In technical terms it is a type of positive train control (PTC). ETCS is implemented with standard trackside equipment and unified controlling equipment within the train cab. In its advanced form, all lineside information is passed to the driver wirelessly inside the cab, removing the need for lineside signals watched by the driver. This will give the foundation for a later to be defined automatic train operation. Trackside equipment aims to exchange information with the vehicle for safely supervising train circulation. The information exchanged between track and trains can be either continuous or int ...
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Washington Metro
The Washington Metro (or simply Metro), formally the Metrorail,Google Books search/preview
is a rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area of the United States. It is administered by the (WMATA), which also operates the Metrobus and Metrorail se ...
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June 22, 2009 Washington Metro Train Collision
During the afternoon rush hour of June 22, 2009, a subway train wreck occurred between two southbound Red Line Washington Metro trains in Northeast, Washington, D.C., United States. A moving train collided with a train stopped ahead of it; the train operator along with eight passengers died, and 80 people were injured, making it the deadliest crash in the history of the Washington Metro. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that after a June 17 replacement of a track circuit component at what became the crash site, the track circuit had been suffering from parasitic oscillations which left it unable to reliably report when that stretch of track was occupied by a train. The struck train came to a stop because of traffic ahead. Because the entire train was within the faulty circuit, it became invisible to the Automatic Train Control (ATC) system. The train behind it was therefore commanded to proceed at . The operator of the striking train applied th ...
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