Despite the accidents, rail transport in our country is increasingly desirable
The arrow under the derailed train at Sofia Central Railway Station was blocked, but due to renovations to the station it is possible that a cable was damaged, which affected its sensitivity and caused it to overturn. This is one of the versions the investigators are working on.
At dawn yesterday, a carriage of the Burgas-Sofia train derailed and hit a pole at the Central Station, interrupting the network of contacts. This messed up the timetable of 180 trains.
So far, 2 things are certain in the investigation: that the crash was not the result of human error and that the third car of the train derailed as the train was passing through one of the switches. According to the investigators, the renovation works underway at the station are digging deep and it is entirely possible that important cables related to the sensitivity of the arrow in question have been affected.
“There is a lot of machinery in operation right now on the ground. All types of machinery are in operation and the possibility that one of the machinery has affected these communication channels that the control systems work on to ensure movement is entirely possible and from there the sensitivity of some devices was disturbed even during the passage of a train at a certain point to simply receive this refusal, as happened yesterday. At the moment, we cannot yet say where the cause is”, explained Eng. Boycho Skrobanski, from the National Council for the Investigation of Rail Accidents.
The Rail Accident Investigation Board has denied claims that the switch under the derailed train was unblocked.
“The arm is stuck with an electrical command. It just happened… an electrical failure that led to its forced inversion,” said engineer Boycho Skrobanski.
However, it is certain that the slow speed of the train, which was moving at 25km/h, and the quick reaction of the drivers prevented more serious consequences, he said. BNT extension.
The renovation works of the Central Railway Station in Sofia have been going on for two years, it is currently manually operated and its connection with neighboring stations is by telephone, but according to experts this cannot be the cause of yesterday’s accident. Luckily no one was injured, but hundreds of passengers waited for hours.
The power outage in the middle of the train station caused chaos and a total of 180 trains were affected. The scheduling problems continued today.
However, according to the Tourism Analysis and Evaluation Institute, around 550,000 of our compatriots have chosen to take holidays away from home.
“About 70,000 will go abroad and about 6,000 to exotic destinations,” said Rumen Draganov of the Institute for Analysis and Evaluations in Tourism.
The remaining over 450,000 travel around Bulgaria, not a few by train. Yesterday’s incident at the Central Station-Sofia led to massive delays, hundreds of passengers had to be transported on buses.
