Swiss Rail Network Collapse Avoidable: Officials
Posted on: Saturday, 2 July 2005, 09:00 CDT
Swiss rail network collapse avoidable: officials
GENEVA, July 1 (Xinhua) -- Swiss Federal Railways said Friday that last week's complete collapse of its rail network could have been avoided if action had been taken earlier.
The reason for the power failure was not a short circuit as had been thought, but an overloading of the line linking the southern canton of Ticino with the rest of the country, said the company at a news conference.
The investigation, which is ongoing, had shown that a breakdown on one line caused a domino effect on the entire rail network, resulting in its collapse.
The four-hour stoppage on June 22, unprecedented in the company 's history, affected some 200,000 passengers.
The Federal Railways said the north-south line became overloaded when two other lines on that stretch were deactivated to allow work to be carried out on them.
If extra current had been supplied to the network at the time when these two lines were taken out of action, the breakdown would not have occurred, said the Federal Railways' head of infrastructure, Hansjorg Hess.
The power failure could have been limited to the transalpine line if some trains had been stopped, he added.
The Federal Railways said lessons have already been drawn from the incident: the works, which were being carried out on two of the three transalpine lines, have been suspended and staff training is being enhanced.
In addition, sales of electricity to third parties has been stopped, allowing extra reserves to be built up.
The company said it estimated the total cost of the power cut to come to 3 million Swiss francs (2.33 million US dollars). Around 10,000 passengers have accepted compensation in the form of rail vouchers.
The final report of the investigation into the incident is expected to be complete by the end of August.
Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS
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