Santiago Rail Crash

ByFaris

02/10/2024 – Update: SARS is organizing a ‘repeat’ of this webinar, available for registration here.

I joined a webinar yesterday, discussing the rail crash of a high speed train in Spain about 11 years ago. The presenter gave evidence during the court prosecutions, which resulted in the safety director being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison due to not doing Risk Assessment (properly). Quite an interesting session, and it feels like a lot was at stake. One of the points of discussion even gauged that the loss and cost of the accident was in the tens or thousands of millions Euros.

Personally, the webinar made me think a few t things.

  1. I vaguely remember seeing the news of the rail crash and I read the headlines, saying the driver was speeding. I just recently started working and have not much understanding of the railway and its operations. So I accepted that fact and moved on. When anyone asked me then, I would just say the driver drove too fast. Just like driving a car.
  2. It took 11 years for the accident investigation to conclude, and the presenter cannot share to the public during that time, hence why the webinar yesterday was conducted.
  3. I’ve been working 11 years now. Wow I am old. Time flies.
  4. Now I can see another layer, where signalling, train control and operation, could have stopped the accident, and how there is so much more than just a train driver. Railway operation is not like driving a car.
  5. And I am starting to appreciate that there is an even another layer above all this systems, which is the process of designing the systems and managing the risks. A system is not designed just for the sake of existing, but has to be viewed from multiple perspectives. If you design out a risk, it doesn’t simply disappear, it would transition to other systems.

It helps to be reminded like what the webinar did, and although it was a tragic accident, it provided very valuable lessons. It would be good to learn without the loss, but that is how most lessons are learned.

Thank you for reading.

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