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| Hinton Rail crash 05/04/2013 at 13:31 #43093 | |
jc92
3629 posts |
Just a question for anyone with experience/knowledge of north american signalling. i watched a national geographic programme on the head on collision at Hinton in canada, and couldnt understand why the dispatcher "did nothing". however this was 1986 so there may not have been the full extent of technology that we now take for granted. what wasnt explained or covered, was that when the freight train spadded the stop signal protecting the exit to the loop, why didnt the dispatcher radio him, or the crew of the Via rail train? in fact the programme almost hinted the dispatcher wasnt aware of the SPAD until the crew rang in to report the collision. Maybe someone can shed some light on this, as i wouldve thought A) he would have suitable detection available B ) wouldve had emergency radio contact available. cheers 
"We don't stop camborne wednesdays" Last edited: 05/04/2013 at 13:31 by jc92 Log in to reply |
| Hinton Rail crash 05/04/2013 at 14:21 #43096 | |
moonraker
353 posts |
Saw that program. I think the engineer on the freight had some health problems which may have contributed to him missing the signal being red in the loop.
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| Hinton Rail crash 05/04/2013 at 16:13 #43097 | |
GeoffM
6284 posts |
" said:what wasnt explained or covered, was that when the freight train spadded the stop signal protecting the exit to the loop, why didnt the dispatcher radio him, or the crew of the Via rail train? in fact the programme almost hinted the dispatcher wasnt aware of the SPAD until the crew rang in to report the collision.My understanding of this is that the SPAD and the accident occurred within seconds of each other. If the passenger train was even one minute earlier, it would have been clear of the pointwork and thus the freight would have missed the passenger train. Secondly, the passenger train was on single track approaching a single point leading to double track. The freight was on one of the double tracks; the passenger train signalled on to the other track. The moment before the SPAD you have one of the double tracks occupied, and the track on the single line occupied. The track over the pointwork is clear. North American railroads in general do not have overlaps. So when the point track became occupied, was it by the passenger train or by the freight train - or both? It's impossible to tell. We have the same issue in the UK, except that overlaps can give a clue sometimes. There is also a lesser issue that interlockings are often controlled by radio base stations. The dispatcher (signaller) will issue requests which travel by fixed wire to some remote base station, which then broadcasts the requests by radio to the interlockings in the area. A round trip request can take a minute or more before the dispatcher sees the results of his actions. However, I don't know if that was the case here. Incidentally it does mean that with some simple equipment you can listen in on the telegrams. SimSig Boss Log in to reply The following user said thank you: jc92 |
| Hinton Rail crash 05/04/2013 at 16:42 #43099 | |
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jc92
3629 posts |
thanks for that geoff, the program seemed to insinuate that the freight passed into the single line, then took a year and a day to reach the passenger, but if it was a swift occurence that makes sense. equally the TC occupation makes sense aswell, it just suprises me theres no SPAD alarms fitted. but thanks for the confirmation "We don't stop camborne wednesdays" Log in to reply |
| Hinton Rail crash 05/04/2013 at 17:31 #43101 | |
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GeoffM
6284 posts |
Even if there were a SPAD alarm fitted, if it was produced by track circuit occupancy, it wouldn't have detected it anyway - unless there was an extra TC between the freight's stop signal and the junction TC, which is unlikely.
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| Hinton Rail crash 06/04/2013 at 19:20 #43123 | |
jwsetford
164 posts |
i once watched that on youtube but cant find the video now. 
Last edited: 06/04/2013 at 19:39 by jwsetford Log in to reply |