For once I looked at the Trainnews, and to some extent I am shocked about the bullshit the media presented about the Crash about 30 km from Zürich.

Actually, NBC's article and video are not that bad (because the video is uncommented, and the article is too short to mess things up. Fun is that apparently NBC considers Switzerland so unimportant that their nearest correspondent is in Mainz in Germany…

Another fun thing is the reference to the USAn unions being against one-man crews.

The real crap, however is in the Express, where the place (Rafz) and the time (6:45) are about the only thing correct… The "dozens of injured" turned out to be 6. The "high speed train" is a regular RegioExpress consist.


What apparently happened, was that the local train, which turned in Rafz accelerated, and hit the side of the passing RegioExpress (which was running 10 minutes late), and actually had the path. The local train is not part of the fixed interval schedule, and there is only one or two such trains per day (coming from Schaffhausen and turning in Rafz).

Now, the line between Rafz and Schaffhausen has been renewed recently and has the state of the art signalling system installed, which should have prevented the crash. However, there is a feature of that system that after changing directions, the train has to pass a balise to know the state of the next signal, something which was not the case, which means that the train only got stopped at the exit signal, but not before… This led to a side collision, and the express train derailed. In a forum where SBB drivers participate, several ones stated that the Schaffhausen side of the Rafz station can be confusing, particularly at night time. It is not quite obvious which signal counts for which track, a situation requiring a bit more concentration.

In context of the single-man crew discussion, it may be ironic, that both trains involved in the crash had two men in the cab. And actually, the second man in the cab of the express was the one most seriously injured. When the engine got pushed towards the right it did hit a catenary mast. The rescuers had to cut open the side of the cab to get him out (that's why the pictures show such a big hole on the right side of the cab; it is not caused by the accident, but for rescue purposes. Later the days, news reports stated that he is doing reasonably well. But fact is that the accident was not prevented by two-man crews.