Train Accidents and Safety Breaches Paper 2022

Train Accidents and Safety Breaches 1
Train Accidents and Safety Breaches
Name of the Author
Name of the University

Train Accidents and Safety Breaches 2
Executive Summary
There are different modes of transport which are used by people throughout the world. One of
the transports is the rail system. Like every mode of transport, the rail system has many safety
procedures. However, many staff members neglect these safety procedures, which cause train
accidents. Through this paper, one of such train accidents occurred in Santiago in 2013 is
described. The main reason for this accident was because of the overspeed of the train. This
happened because of the negligence of the driver and other staff members. These safety breaches
are mainly caused due to the human factors and it is important to make some rules for the proper
functioning of safety procedures in the railroad system. After the incident, the government has
made several corrective actions for the future so that no such incidents occur in the future.

Train Accidents and Safety Breaches 3
Introduction
Rail transport is a great medium of transport as it connects the densely populated areas nationally
and internationally with high speed. This is the reason this mode of transport is made more
efficient and effective. Because of the requirement of rail transport, it is important to ensure the
security and safety of passengers travelling in railways. This paper describes a rail accident
which occurred in Santiago on July 2013 and the safety breaches because of which this accident
occurred. Through this paper, it has been described some measures to reduce rail accidents in
future (El-Miloudi El-Koursi and Jean-Luc Bruyelle, 2016).
Incident Description
The most widespread high-speed railway networks in the world were built and maintained by the
infrastructure company Adif which is a state-owned company. The rolling stack is managed by
another state-owned company named Renfe. A high-speed rail line, Olmedo-Zamora-Galicia in
Spain was completed only partially in which some sections of the high-speed railway were in
service while some of the sections have remained as a conventional rail line. The Renfe class 730
passenger train can run on both types of tracks. Hence, it was in service on this rail line (Saha,
2013).
The derailment incident happened on 24th July 2013. The passenger train was travelling to Ferrol
from Madrid. This train was derailed 2.5 miles before the railway station at Santiago de
Compostela when it was on high speed on a curve. During the railway accident, about 79 people
were killed and 140 people were injured. After forty years of a train crash, this was the worst
train crash in Spain. According to the data recorder of the train, the train was running at about
double speed limit which was posted for the train when it entered the curve in the railway track.