Communication problems may have caused Stavoren train crash

Thursday 29 July 2010

The official in charge of safety on the maintenance train which crashed in Stavoren on Sunday night was a temporary worker and the train driver spoke no Dutch, the Telegraaf reports on Thursday.

The train, which was carrying out maintenance on the track, ploughed through the buffers and cut a shop selling water sports equipment in half in the crash.

Transport inspectors are now looking into whether the man in charge of safety had sufficient expertise to do the job. He was in charge of keeping in contact with the track officials, reading the signals and giving other instructions to the Italian driver, the paper says.

In addition, the driver should only have been allowed to take charge of the train if he knew the track properly, a spokeswoman for the inspectors told the paper.

Use of the maintenance trains owned by Swiss firm Speno has now been suspended.

© DutchNews.nl

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