Chapter 5. Accidents on Roads, in the Air and in the Sea

Chapter 5. Accidents on Roads, in the Air and in the Sea

Key words and terms:

Collide, collision Force Locomotive Extricate Human error Install Upgrade

Perish Crumple Random Glow Brakes Automatic braking system Reconstruct

Text 18. Nordic Nightmare

Two trains collided head-on in northern Norway, leaving 19 dead and many unanswered questions. One of them was the express train, on which a group of skiers was traveling back home to England, and the other was a local train on the same track. It was one of the worst railroad accidents in Norwegian history. This entire party of tourists escaped relatively unscathed, but many others perished - and it was completely random. Two of the passengers were just going along when there was a sudden massive jolt and they were thrown around the carriage as though it was a box somebody was shaking.

Both trains were moving at nearly 90 km/h, and the force of the impact was so great that the front part of this carriage crumpled like an accordion. Diesel spilled from the express train's locomotive, and some who survived the actual crash died when they were unable to escape the resulting flames. Late into the evening more than 200 rescue workers who had converged on the scene of the accident near Elverum, 180 km north of Oslo, were still struggling to extricate survivors. The heat was so intense that some victims were burnt beyond recognition, and days later the wreckage still glowed in the snowy landscape.

Questions quickly arose about the cause of the crash. The most likely explanation involved human error, including the possibility that one of the drivers went through a red light. The Roeros line both trains of which were on the monorail railway has not been equipped yet with automatic braking system, which stops any train running a red signal. Officials from the Norwegian state rail network (NSB) did, however, say that such an upgrade was due to be installed in the near future.

Both drivers died in the crash, so investigation had to reconstruct events without their testimony. A Norwegian television bulletin offered an especially tragic twist: rail traffic controllers reportedly observed the two trains on a collision curse but were unable to warn drivers because they could not locate their cell phone numbers. Trains on the Roeros line are not equipped with radios and the NSB acknowledges that "mobile telephones are the only method of communication for trains under way on the Roeros line."

Even after the wreckage was cleared and tracks reopened, the Roeros line was unlikely to see much traffic. Several days later Norway’s 1,100-mernber train engineers union announced that it was boycotting the line until safety measures were improved.

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