Investigators have found that leaf debris and oil on the track caused a passenger train to crash into a suburban railway station.
The Australian Transport and Safety Bureau has found the January accident was due to Queensland Rail’s failure to keep the track clean, and blamed ‘contamination’ on the track for reducing adhesion with the train’s wheels.
The train came unstuck on January 31 as it approached Cleveland station at the end of the line at Brisbane’s bayside, The Australian reported.
Nineteen people were on the train at the time of the accident, and eight more were waiting on the platform when the train hit the end-of-line buffer, jumped the tracks and crashed into a toilet block.
No one was seriously injured.
"The studies indicated that a damp leaf film produced significantly reduced levels of friction and adhesion," the ATBS found in its preliminary report on the accident, released today.
"Considering the evidence of a film of leaf tissue and oils on the rail head, combined with light rain falling at Cleveland as train T842 approached the station, the rail running surface almost certainly exhibited poor adhesion at the contact between the train's wheels and the rail head, resulting in wheel slide.
"Preliminary analysis has shown that the driver's operation of the train was in accordance with normal practice and that the train's broke system worked as designed."
The ATBS said Queensland Rail didn’t do enough to ‘sufficiently mitigate’ the risk buildups posed to track safety.
Image: au.new.yahoo.com
