Article: The little engine that couldn't keep it together

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

The little engine that couldn't keep it together

The little engine that couldn't keep it together
Clay Lucas
August 12, 2011

IN THE latest rail debacle involving interstate services, the carriages on yesterday's morning train to Sydney became separated from the engine car as it gathered speed on the outskirts of Melbourne.

About 9am, as it passed through the suburb of Coolaroo in Melbourne's north, the engine car on the morning's Melbourne-to-Sydney train detached from carriages carrying 142 passengers. No one was harmed in the incident, and both the engine car and the passenger carriages slowly ground to a halt after they became separated, due to a loss of power.

Victoria's chief rail safety officer Ian McCallum is now carrying out an investigation, on behalf of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

The accident comes two weeks after a V/Line train leaving Seymour came within 150 metres of colliding with a maintenance gang and work truck, after a signalling mistake.

The five-carriage train was bound for Albury, and it was routed onto the wrong track near Seymour, before it was stopped short of the maintenance gang that was replacing a two-metre gap in the line.

The New South Wales government's RailCorp operates the XPT service between Melbourne and Sydney.

A statement from a RailCorp spokesman confirmed that the the leading engine carriage ''came away from other carriages on the train. The incident occurred near a level crossing between Broadmeadows and Somerton.

''Equipment which joins the engine carriage to the rest of the train was damaged and the train was unable to continue on its journey,'' the spokesman said. ''RailCorp is conducting an investigation of the incident.''

After the accident, the lone locomotive car was parked on spare tracks in Roxburgh Park until the afternoon.

After the lead motor car separated from the carriages, passengers were pulled back two stops to Broadmeadows by the rear engine car, and put onto coaches bound for Sydney - a journey three hours longer than the original 11-hour trip.

The track where the incident happened is managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which has also been responsible for a $612 million re-sleepering project between Sydney and Melbourne that has gone badly wrong.

The construction work on the re-sleepering project took around two-and-a-half years, and parts of the tracks were closed or had severe speed limits on them for extended periods, because of shoddy work. Extensive rain downpours also created ''mudholes'' along the route, many of which are still being repaired.

A spokesman for the corporation said yesterday's incident was under investigation, but that there had not been any recent reports by drivers of problems with the track.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-little-engine-that-couldnt-keep-it-together-20110811-1ioui.html