I hadn't heard much on the Norway Train Crash in a few days, and was dreading digging back through threads to see the final verdict. But then CNN Headline News just ran a blurb that officials believe someone ignored the signal that another train was on the track. They checked the signals, they are working properly. ::sigh::

-- Lisa (lisadawn@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

So they say.....

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

They were ON TRACK.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

It took them how many days to figure this out?

-- Me (me@me.me), January 10, 2000.

It was Human error, nevermind the cell phones.... human error, error, error, error, erere.eror, reror, roar....

-- Netghost (ng@no.yr), January 10, 2000.

There was a post of a disclosure from the Norway railway, pre Y2K, discussing the risk to human lives that was posed by their system, if it went unremediated. And then .... it did.

>"<

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 10, 2000.

Dispite the working light, the multitude of contingency systems which keep trains safe daily failed in unison. I remain concerned.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

Quite a lot of train collisions involve awe-inspiring human stupidity or negligence...

Of course, had they announced it was human error the day after the accident, people would start screaming "coverup."

Now they do it after a couple weeks of investigation and people complain about THAT.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 10, 2000.

the signals will continue to test fine. see for yourself! to reach Oslo and test the Norway signals just hop the next 777 on a departing flight out of Heathrow ....

-- mrunderhill (prancing@pony.com), January 10, 2000.

Its called 'blame it on the dead guy' - sorry I've gotten pretty cynical.

Makes you wonder though when the other drivers refuse to travel on the same line as of 06 January... Norway drivers boycott crash line Thursday, 6 January, 2000, 13:44 GMT

It appears one of the trains went through a red signal

Norway's train drivers are refusing to travel on a line where two trains collided on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people.

The drivers said they would not use the route with its "current signalling and technical systems".

"They're not good enough," said Stein Olsen, national safety representative for the country's 1,100 drivers.

The drivers said they would only use the track when safety systems were upgraded or all the small stations along the line were staffed.

Such upgrades could take months. The track is due to stay closed for several days while wreckage is cleared.

Steinar Killi, director of the state railway network, said there were no signs of technical faults on the signalling system.

Railway officials said it seemed that one of the drivers had gone through a red light.

News of the boycott came as the grim search for bodies still trapped in the burnt wreckage entered its third day. Rescuers have given up hope of finding any survivors.

It is now known that at least 16 people died in the head-on collision. But the final death toll is expected to reach 19, as three more people are unaccounted for.

Of the 30 passengers and crew who were injured, 12 remain in hospital.

Investigators are looking at reports that railway controllers knew the trains were heading for collision, but could not contact the drivers because they had the wrong cellular phone numbers.

Mobile telephones are the only way to communicate directly with the drivers along the line.

Screams

Both drivers were believed to have died in the crash, which was so savage that several rail cars were compressed into a pile of metal the length of a single car.

One rescue worker said some people survived the crash, but perished in the fire that raged for another six hours afterwards.

"It was the worst moment of my life. We had to abandon people who were screaming in the carriages,'' said Ola Sonderal, a member of one of the first ambulance crews to arrive at the scene.

Fourteen bodies have so far been recovered and two more have been spotted within the train. Many are burned beyond recognition.

The bodies were transported by hearse to the capital Oslo for DNA identification as rescue workers continued to cut their way through the carriages.

Flags flew at half mast across the country, as a fierce debate began about safety standards on the nation's railways.

Red light

The accident happened at the remote Aasta station, about 180km (110 miles) north of Oslo.

One of the trains was an express travelling south from Trondheim with 83 people on board, and the other was a local train from Hamar.

The local train should have been waiting for the inter-city service to pass, but was unaccountably on the move.

Both were travelling at speeds of 80-90km/h (50-56mph), police said.

The only other comparable train disaster in Norway was in 1975, when 27 people died north of Lillehammer.

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), January 10, 2000.

Sheri,

I believe you are right. Any other "craft" and it would go down in the books as "pilot error!"

What would happen if every engineer "stood down" until some real answers were forthcoming?

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.

Preliminary report sites failure to
stop for red light as reason for crash

It also states that the northbound train
left Rustad station two minutes ahead of
scheduled departure time.

Norway Post

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 10, 2000.