The Kerang Train Crash: Safety Breaches, Policy Changes, and Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Kerang train crash, which occurred in Australia in 2007. It examines the causes of the accident, focusing on safety breaches such as the truck's speed, driver fatigue, and visibility issues related to the sun's position. The report highlights the derailment caused by the collision at a level crossing and discusses the impact of the accident, including the fatalities and injuries. Furthermore, it explores the policy changes implemented in response to the crash, such as improved level crossing safety measures, government initiatives to eliminate unmanned crossings, and the development of new technologies like derailment detection devices to enhance rail safety. The report emphasizes the importance of these changes in preventing similar incidents in the future.

Running head: SAFETY & RISK MANAGEMENT 1
Safety and risk management
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SAFETY & RISK MANAGEMENT 2
Kerang Train crash in Australia
This train accident occurred on 5th of June in 2007 at 13:40 AEST in Australian state of Victoria ,
that is about six kilometres north of the city of the Kerang in the state NorthWest , and 257
kilometres that is north-northwest of the city of the Melbourne (Australia, 2014) .
The Southbound V/Line passenger train program 8042 that are comprised of the locomotive
N460 together with the carriage set which was N7 was operating into by the northbound semi-
trailer truck at the level crossing exactly where the Piangil railway line crosses the Murray valley
Highway . The locomotive as well as the carriage eluded the impact as the truck swerved in
direction of the left (Glendon, Clarke & McKenna, 2016). Nevertheless, the 2nd carriage in
addition to the third carriage were struck both, which brought on very intense damages that
occurred to the carriages and fatal injury to eleven passengers. The truck needed innumerable
forty tonnes and it had been travelling at one hundred kilometres per hour, its effect was a
devastating tragedy (Australia, 2014). The truck, that was owned by the Canny Carrying
Business of the Wangaratta and was driven by the Christiaan Scholl, was damaged extremely on
consequence to the carriage. School merely continual a shoulder and a head injuries. In this
accident eleven individuals died and twenty three were injured in this crash, this was one of the
deadliest crash in Australian since the 1977 that took place at Granville (Glendon, Clarke &
McKenna, 2016). The Granville train derailed and run into the support of the road bridge and
crashed on two train passenger carriages (Khan, Rathnayaka & Ahmed, 2015). This accident
killed eighty four people, and more than 210 were injured affecting 1300 individuals.
The train which that was involved in Kerang accident was a locomotive hauled service from
Swan Hill that had departed for Melbourne at around 13:00. The train was operated by N class

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locomotive and 3 vehicle N kind carriage set. This collision triggered the closure of most the
close by part of Murray Valley Highway.
Safety breaches which caused the accident.
On this particularly accident it was caused by derailment. The derailment occurs when a train
runs off its rail. In this derailment it was caused by a collision by a truck when it was at the cross
road. The train crashed with the truck where there was a clear derailment of the running of the
vehicle wheels on the track (Khan, Rathnayaka & Ahmed, 2015). This was an obstruction which
was encountered at the road at level crossings- which is the grade crossing. This impact was
devastating because the truck was carrying more than 40 tonnes and it was moving at a high
speed of 100kmh. the derailment in most of the cases cause a distribution on main lines to differ
from the distribution on the yard or the siding tracks, as a result of different in nature of the
operations in these two setting (Salmon, Lenne, Read, Walker & Stanton, 2014). This type of
derailment provides an insight into the development, evaluation, as well as the implementation of
the accident prevention approaches given a specific set of the operating conditions. Speed is a
contributing factor in this derailment severity, and several qualitative and quantitative
relationship between the derailments and the speed.
Another aspect which have caused this accident could have been the fatigue. This is regarded as
the lack of recuperative sleep. This might are actually contributed by time as well as workplace,
the period of time spent at the workplace along with the amount as well as quality of rest that is
accomplished to and after function periods (Salmon, Lenne, Read, Walker & Stanton, 2014).
Depending on the report the truck driver failed to did not have sufficient rest. Depending on the
regulation in Victoria it involves a driver especially for truck to obtain a 30 minute sleep after
driving for specific five hours (Haque, Chin & Debnath, 2013). The motor vehicle driver happen

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to be on leisure leave for a few weeks. His measures in those days are not generally known as
this may be likelihood of cumulative tiredness that should be present to beginning his work that
day.
An additional safety breach was contrast of the signals in addition to the train with the
background. The contrast entails the difference in the brightness between an item and also its
background (Khan, Rathnayaka & Ahmed, 2015). The contrast usually performs a significant
aspect in numerous visual duties, for instance discriminating objects in the intricate visual
environments or simply to have the ability to look at the road sign. The level of contrast bears the
capability to choose whether or not an object might be identified easily (Salmon, Lenne, Read,
Walker & Stanton, 2014). The moment the sun is directly or maybe indirectly recognizable to the
road user it could result in the physical discomfort and potentially reduce a person capability to
use visual data from the environment. The result of the sun might be amplified by imperfection
or maybe damage to the windscreen of the vehicles (Mulvihill, Salmon, Beanland, Lenné, Read,
Walker, & Stanton, 2016). The condition of the truck before the incident might not be
determined. The originality of the indicators could be lowered under these conditions particularly
in which their luminance level is a great deal similar to the background, as it happens in the
bright sunlight (Kemp, 2016). For that reason, the contrast between the signals along with
surrounding might be less. With this accident the sun was almost direct even before the truck
simply by the approach to the level crossing. Because of this position, it might be feasible that
the sunlight then was mirrored off the surface of the road, which afflicted the driver’s visibility
of the warning signage and level crossing flashing lights (Zhao & Khattak, 2017). Furthermore,
it had been also reported from the study that the truck driver utilized the vision correcting glasses
that changed on the effect of the glare. The position of the sun whenever the accident occurred

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designed that the side of the train that was dealing with the truck driver was shadowed. Because
of this, the contrast between the trains in addition to its background is a bit more likely to have
minimized and a lot less easy for one detect (Zhao & Khattak, 2017). Based on the rail operators
in Australia configure on the locomotive ditch lights to flash any time the locomotive warning
horn is initialized to have the capability to help in improving the conspicuity of the locomotive.
It was not with regards to this incident.
Changes to policy which resulted from the incident and how this was implemented.
Following this tragic accident there are various policy which have been implemented in order to
prevent similar incident in the future. One of the aspect which was identified in regards to the
accident was the safety of the level crossing (Ma, Guha, Choi, Anderson, Nealy, Withers &
Dietrich, 2017). First it is important to understand that the use of the level crossing is completely
safe provided attention is paid and one obeys the laws and the regulations which are set.
Nonetheless, as a result of this accident the government of Australia has been concerned with the
occurrence of the accident. Therefore there policies in regards to managing the level crossing
risk have been implemented (Zeigler, 2016). The government has said it will be only in
exceptional circumstance will they permit new crossings to be introduced onto the network. They
have continued educating the uses on how to use the crossing safety and they have highlighted to
them the dangers associated to it. Moreover, the government has opted to work with the police as
well as the HM Railway Inspectorate (the office of the Rail Regulation) and attempt to promote
enforcement of the law along with prosecution of any individual who abuses the level crossings
(Salmon, Read, Stanton & Lenné, 2013). The government aims to regularly examine and
correctly sustain the level crossing commercial infrastructure such that the safety incidents as a
result of the infrastructure malfunction could be reduced (Zhao & Khattak, 2017). Additionally,

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the transport authorities need to investigate new warning system at the level crossing and more
training for the train drivers as well as the instructors to help them to respond to crashes.
Following this accident the government continues to examine, trial and implement of innovation,
processes in addition to techniques which enhances the safety by means of either reduction of the
cost and the provision of enhanced protection. Further the government decided to eliminate
unmanned level crossing through various means (Salmon, Read, Stanton & Lenné, 2013). It
decided to eliminate all the level that are unmanned through; closing the unmanned crossing that
have negligible train vehicle units, merger of the unmanned level crossing to the nearby manned
gates or road under bridge.
There has been a renewed interest in the safety of the rail travel in Australia Railways, following
the incident of Kerang accident. There are a number of technologies which are been developed
following this accident in order to improve on the safety of rail journey (Zhao & Khattak, 2017).
One such is the derailment detection devices which are sensors which are on board train and
detect the possibility of derailment based on the movement as well as the tilt. The devices would
measure and process the signals (Young, Lenné, Beanland, Salmon & Stanton, 2015). With the
proper integration into the braking system of the train, in case of derailment the instrument
would minimize the causalities by the reducing the amount of time the derailed coach drag
(Zeigler, 2016). This is aligned with the policy of the government which they have implemented
to examine, trial and implementing of revolutionary technology, procedures in addition to
strategies to be able to develop the safety through reduced cost and provision of improved
protection.
Conclusion

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Kerang train accident is one of the deadliest has been encountered since 1977, that occurred at
Granville in Australia. This accident has been due to the safety breaches. In this research it has
focused on the causes of the incident, and the changes to the policy and practices which the
government has implemented to prevent a future incident from occurring.

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