2 trains collide at station injuring 9 in Vienna, Austria

Two trains collided at a station in Vienna on Saturday, leaving nine people with largely light injuries, authorities said.

 

The accident happened at Meidling station, near the center of the Austrian capital, on Saturday afternoon. A Railjet intercity train headed for Villach in southern Austria with 30 people on board hit an empty regional train.

 

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the accident, which resulted in part of the Railjet train derailing and tipping over. Nine people were hurt, though the most severe injury was a hand fracture, the Austria Press Agency reported.

 

Roman Hahslinger, a spokesman for railway company OeBB, said that a technical problem and human error were both possible causes. Investigators planned to question both train drivers, neither of whom was injured, as well as dispatchers.

Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

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Two trains collide causing multiple injuries in Durban, South Africa

At least 80 people were injured in a train collision near Berea in Durban on Tuesday evening, said South African officials.

The accident trains are passenger trains operated by Metrorail. The power line of the railway was shut down after the crash.

Emergency Service ER24 spokesperson Derrick Banks told media that the passengers, sustained minor to moderate injuries, had been transported to various hospitals.

Metrorail spokesperson Dumi Dube said no death have been reported.

The investigation of the accident is under way. However Dube said the collision could have been caused by faulty signals on one of the trains.

http://tinyurl.com/m2jjswo

Subway trains collide in Seoul, South Korea

TWO subway trains have collided in Seoul, injuring more than 170 people but with no reported fatalities

News of the accident broke as the country still reels from the ferry disaster that has left around 300 people dead or missing — most of them schoolchildren — after the boat capsized and sank on April 16.

The ferry tragedy has triggered widespread public anger and a bout of national soul-searching as to whether South Korea — now Asia’s fourth-largest economy — sacrificed safety standards in its rush for development.

Briefing reporters, fire department official Kim Kyung-Soo said 172 people had been injured in Friday’s train collision, none of them seriously.

The accident happened around 3.30pm (4pm AEST) when a moving train slammed into the rear of a stationary train at Sangwangsimni station in eastern Seoul.

Around 1000 people were evacuated from the two trains, Mr Kim said, adding that many of those hurt had complained of ankle injuries, cuts and bruises.

According to senior Seoul Metro official Chung Soo-Young, initial investigations suggested the automated stopping system that should prevent a train getting too close to another appeared to have failed.

The tunnel curves before entering Sangwangsimni station and Mr Chung said the driver of the moving train did not see the platform was occupied until quite late.

He applied the emergency break, but the distance was “too short” to avoid a collision, Mr Chung said.

The two last cars of the stationary train appeared to have been thrown off the rails by the force of the impact, and TV footage showed cracked windows on the two trains and one door connecting two carriages that had been completely knocked off its hinges.

One image showed a bloodstained floor leading to the sliding doors in one carriage.

Seoul’s subway network in one of the busiest in the world, carrying around 5.25 million passengers a day, according to official data from City Hall.

Although there were no fatalities, the accident will likely fuel public criticism of the government for lax safety standards caused by the alleged collusion of transport companies and state regulators.

President Park Geun-Hye’s approval ratings, which have been impressively high since she took office a little over a year ago, have fallen by around 11 percentage points in the wake of the ferry disaster, according to Gallup Korea.

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Major Train Derailment Crash with Fire Near Downtown Lynchburg, Virginia, USA

Lynchburg police and firefighters responded about 2:00 p.m. Wednesday to a train collision and fire near the Amazement Square and Depot Grille. The crash is also a HazMat incident.

 

A material on the surface of the James River is burning with large flames and heavy black smoke. Crude oil is leaking into the James River, and boom to hold the crude oil in place has been placed in the river.

 

The CSX train was hauling 12 to 4 CSX tanker believed to be carrying crude oil.

The 9-1-1 dispatch center was flooded with calls and callers reported getting a busy signal when trying to call 9-1-1 to report the fire.

http://tinyurl.com/q4xmtqn

Train Collision In North Dakota Ignites Oil Tankers; No Injuries Immediately Reported

A collision between two trains caused a freight train carrying crude oil to derail in North Dakota on Monday afternoon, triggering an explosion and sending flames shooting more than 100 feet into the air. No injuries were immediately reported.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office said deputies and local emergency crews responded to reports of a derailment near the city of Casselton, N.D., and discovered the oil train burning, with up to 10 cars fully engulfed, said sheriff’s Sgt. Tara Morris.

The train derailed on the Jamestown line at approximately 2 p.m. local time, Amy McBeth, spokeswoman for BNSF Railway told NBC News, adding that no further information was immediately available.

“There was an explosion, where a car let loose and there was a giant fireball, hundreds of feet in the air,” said Assistant Chief Gary Lorenz of the City of Fargo Fire Department, who was in touch with a crew on the scene.

“It’s burning very strong right now,” he said. “You can see the plume of smoke for 25 miles.”

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/30/22113442-train-collision-in-north-dakota-ignites-oil-tankers-no-injuries-immediately-reported