Article: A major safety gap in Melbourne train system found

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From the Herald Sun click here!

A major safety gap in Melbourne train system found

A major safety gap in Melbourne train system found
Article from: Herald Sun

Ashley Gardiner

June 12, 2009 12:00am

A MAJOR safety gap in the metropolitan train system has been identified by the State Government's rail safety chief.

Public Transport Safety Victoria chief Alan Osborne has blasted the lack of fail-safe controls on V/Line trains in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr Osborne said the gap represented a risk to safety on trains in the metropolitan area.

All V/Line trains have been fitted with the fail-safe system that overrides the driver to avoid collisions.

The system can automatically stop a V/Line train if the driver fails to obey a signal.

But it only works outside Melbourne, meaning collisions between Connex and V/Line trains are possible.

The Train Protection and Warning System was installed as part of the Regional Fast Rail project.

A different system operates on Connex trains, but does not work on V/Line trains in the suburbs.

Mr Osborne said a more advanced system, known as Automatic Train Protection, was being considered for Victoria.

ATP technology, which is being introduced in Europe, would allow more trains to run on the system by running them closer together.