Incident in a marshalling yard near Toulouse: what really happened
During a maneuver at the Saint-Jory marshalling yard, this Monday, October 5, a freight train joined with another. The operation had been badly “calibrated”. A wagon used to transport toxic products found itself in unstable equilibrium. The incident led to the suspension of traffic in the area from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. The Dispatch make the point.
A siren howls, the area around the Saint-Jory marshalling yard located in the town of Lespinasse, north of Toulouse, is completely cordoned off by the firefighters and gendarmes of the Toulouse-Saint-Michel company. It is around 7 a.m. this Wednesday, October 5, and SNCF technicians have continued to inspect the two freight trains at the platform.
A few hours earlier, around 1:30 a.m., these two trains carrying chemicals collided. At first, this incident, due to the content of the goods (vinyl chloride and LPG), gave rise to a moment of confusion.
The SNCF came back in detail what happened. One of the two trains had been parked for some time on a siding. On the lane right next to it, the other machine had caused a maneuver to park. To do this, the driver was supported on the ground by agents specialized in this type of intervention. As required by procedure, he pilots the train at a very low speed. Problem: the operation was poorly calibrated.
Technician slightly injured
The queue of the parked train should not have been there but a little further on the track… Its wagons being too wide for the allocated space. Inevitably, for a maneuver that is carried out to the nearest centimeter, the two trains have “rubbed”. As these are multi-ton machines, this leads to some damage. A car went slightly off the rails and found itself in an unstable equilibrium.
The driver immediately stopped the locomotive. In a panic, one of the ground technicians tripped over the ballast and twisted his ankle. He was transported by firefighters to the hospital.
First reflex of firefighters and SNCF agents: check if the wagon is leaking. Fortunately, there was no trace of liquid or gas to report. According to the firefighters, it would appear that the car was “empty of vinyl chloride but not degassed”
As a safety measure, the commercial lines that cross the station have been suspended from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. Passenger traffic resumed normally soon after.
Next night, a crane on rails will allow the damaged car to be put back on the rails. The entire train should quickly go to a technicentre for control.