CIAF says Adamuz crash investigation will continue for several months more

CIAF says Adamuz crash investigation will continue for several months more SPAIN: The Comisión de Investigación de Accidentes Ferroviarios has told national infrastructure manager ADIF that the final report on the derailments at Adamuz will take several more months to complete. Spanish news agency Europa Press reports that a letter was sent on July 3 by CIAF President Ignacio Barrón to ADIF Managing Director Luis Pedro Marco informing the infrastructure manager that it had not yet been possible to subject the samples of the broken rail from the Adamuz site to laboratory analysis. It is therefore not possible to say what the causes of the rail fracture were. The investigation team says it still intends to complete the laboratory tests. Nevertheless, CIAF has so far found that the fracture appears to have started at the base of the rail, and gradually extended upwards, so that when the break occurred, the head of the rail was the last part to fracture. The fracture was present for around 22 h before the derailment, and was detected by a remote monitoring tool that registers changes in track circuit voltages, and is used in corrective and preventive rail maintenance. However, this is not considered to be a warning device. ADIF relies on inspection and auscultation techniques for detecting and preventing rail breaks, but investigators believe that these preventive methods are inadequate to completely eliminate the risk of rail breaks occurring. The letter also raises unsolved questions about the behaviour of the Iryo-operated ETR1000 trainset which derailed when it encountered the rail fracture. CIAF says it is not clear why the rear cars came to rest across the opposing running line, when the crack was on the right-hand rail of the track on which it was travelling. The derailed cars would have been expected to slew to the right of the track, it adds. The investigators also conclude that there remains no tried and tested system available on the market for the infallible early detection of rail breaks. The letter has been released ahead of the imminent merger of CIAF into a broader accident investigation body that will also cover other modes. Railway Gazette International has approached CIAF to confirm the content of the letter, but we had not received a response at the time of publication. Subscribe to gain access to all news Already have a subscription? Log in. Choose your subscription Considering a corporate subscription? Contact us to find out more.