High Speed train crash in Spain

[citizen k]

Dozens dead.

[Liep]

That does not look good.

[mongers]

Damn, a bad one.   

One of the survivors said he knew he was very lucky to survive and not be badly injured.

[jimmy olsen]

Damn, looks terrible! At least 45 dead and 70 injured! 

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/24/19661944-dozens-dead-scores-injured-as-train-derails-in-spain?lite

[Drakken]

Now up to 77 deaths, just a few kilometers away from the train station to Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, a famous Catholic pilgrimage site. 

[Iormlund]

Alvia is not a high-speed train. AVE is.

[Duque de Bragança]

Awful.
Yesterday, I was thinking about taking one of those Alvia trains from Irún to Puebla de Sanabria/Póvoa de Seabra i.e Bragança since the timetables were changed and improved recently...
According to El Pais
http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2013/07/24/actualidad/1374701732_356780.html
seems excessive speed is to blame (180 kph vs 80 kph), though a steep (?!) curve  where speed is limited to 80 kph (?!) is not standard. The El Pais alludes to a track done on the cheap...

Bad series for trains, another derailment after the one in Brétigny, in Île-de-France.

Iormlund:

for US'ers it is since it can reach 250 kph but it's more of an hybrid. The French criterion for high-speed is more than 220 kph as cruise speed, not sure if the UIC agrees. If it's on improved tracks, it could be less like more than 160 or 200, otherwise on new lines it should be more at least 250 kph.

[jimmy olsen]

190kph in a 80kph zone? What did they think would happen?

http://www.thelocal.es/20130725/driver-ave-santiago

[Liep]

Our rail maintenance company has assured our worried passengers that this kind of accident could never happen in Denmark. Which is nice, but not true.

[Liep]

190kph in a 80kph zone? What did they think would happen?

http://www.thelocal.es/20130725/driver-ave-santiago

Any train service that can run with those speeds requires a security system that can control the train's speed. Pretty sure that's EU regulations.

So how and why the train was going at that speed is quite odd.

[DGuller]

Woah, the video was intense.  Trains crashing into support beams and then the concrete wall is pretty nasty (though I guess you can kind of figure that already from the death toll).

[Liep]

Driver is taken into custody, apparently he was a dick.

[Maximus]

Is that a crime in Spain?

[Liep]

Is that a crime in Spain?

It should be in every country.

[KRonn]

Wow, the video was tough to watch, a train crashing like that, knowing that it's loaded with so many passengers.