Sydenham Rail Disaster

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In the Sydenham Rail Disaster of December 19, 1953, an electric passenger train of the New South Wales Railways ran into the rear of another electric train. Five people were killed and 748 injured. A wrong side failure was believed to be responsible.

[edit] Synopsis

In the accident, the signal electrician was attending a failure of a track circuit. To help keep the trains moving, he was picking up that track circuit relay with his fingers. Distracted by a telephone call, he forgot to drop the track circuit relay when the section became occupied by a train, allowing a second train to see green signals and collide with the first.^{[citation needed]}

Since that time, signal electricians have been advised to help no more than the first train out of the way, after which they should concentrate on finding the fault.^{[citation needed]}