Posted on 02 August 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
The Australian city of Melbourne was thrown into chaos on 27 July when an overhead wire broke in the morning peak, causing a total rail traction failure which paralysed services on all lines for more than an hour, stranding some 400,000 people. Commuters with access to cars switched to the roads, resulting in virtual gridlock. [...] [...more]
Posted on 02 August 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
Sections of the Melbourne-Albury line, recently upgraded at a cost of A$500 million, have been declared unsafe because “hundreds of large, mud-filled potholes” have formed beneath the newly installed sleepers and rails. According to the drivers’ union, speed restrictions have been enforced along 58km of the line because uneven track had drivers “almost bouncing out [...] [...more]
Posted on 25 July 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
The New South Wales Supreme Court has fined the Australian Track Corporation (ARTC) A$200,000 for safety breaches which caused the death of two maintenance workers in July 2007. The Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator sued the Australian Rail Track Corporation following the accident near Singleton Station in the Hunter Valley. The corporation pleaded guilty [...] [...more]
Posted on 24 May 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
A simple device known as a “health card”, no bigger than a box of CDs, which bolts on to a wagon and uses algorithms to give indications of wagon and track conditions, has been developed within the “train health advisory system” – a collaborative project between Central Queensland University’s Centre for Railway Engineering, Queensland Rail [...] [...more]
Posted on 14 May 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
At least three people were hurt seriously when a passenger train ran into the back of a freight at Craigieburn in the north of Melbourne. Altogether eight injured passengers were taken to hospital, while a further ten were treated at the scene. A spokeswoman for the regulator Public Transport Safety Victoria (PTSV) confirmed that the [...] [...more]
Posted on 01 April 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
A tourist train carrying 200 passengers on the scenic Kuranda line in Australia’s Queensland derailed following a serious mudslide near Redlynch, 16km from its starting point at Cairns. Five people, including a two-year-old boy, were reported hurt. One locomotive came off the track but remained upright. The second loco took the rest of the train [...] [...more]
Posted on 22 March 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
Melbourne’s 850 suburban train drivers have been promised indemnity by Metro CEO Andrew Lezala if a brake failure on one of the city’s 36 trouble-plagued Siemens trains causes them to crash. Efforts to correct the brake failures have worked for the most part, but there have been sufficent recent instances to justify nine trains being [...] [...more]
Posted on 12 February 2010 by Railways Africa Editor
At about 01:40 0n 2 February, a Pacific National train derailed between Wycarbah and Warren, about 40km from Rockhampton in the Blackwater coal system. The incident was expected to delay trains in central Queensland for several days. Two locomotives went off the line, together with a number of coal wagons but no injuries were reported. [...] [...more]
Posted on 09 October 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
The Australian Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB) has published a security handbook providing non-prescriptive guidance on the management of security risks in a rail environment (both urban and non-urban contexts). Published in two volumes, the handbook provides explanations of processes and activities that can be used to identify and mitigate security risks faced [...] [...more]
Posted on 07 September 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
The Council of Australian state governments has agreed to create a national safety regulatory system and to have the Australian Transport Safety Bureau act as the preferred investigator of rail accidents. Currently, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports, Australia has seven rail safety regulators, three rail safety investigators and different rules in every state. But the [...] [...more]
Posted on 09 July 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
Investigations into a November 2008 derailment has revealed the much of the A$1.4 billion, newly built Alice Springs-Darwin section of the AustralAsia Adelaide-Darwin line is “misaligned”. The 1.2km-long southbound freight train, which was carrying nitrous oxide, was travelling at 93km/h when six of its 26 wagons derailed on a curve. An Australian Transport Safety Bureau [...] [...more]
Posted on 11 June 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
On 10 March, three locomotives and several wagons filled with coal derailed when a train collided with stationary rolling stock 140km south-east of Mackay in Queensland’s Coppabella Yard, the main staging point for trains on the Goonyella system. One of the locos landed up on top of a wagon. Neither of the two-man crew in [...] [...more]
