Åsta accident

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The Åsta accident was a railway accident that occurred at 13:12:25 on January 4, 2000 at Åsta in Åmot, south of Rena in Østerdalen, Norway. A train from Trondheim collided with a local train from Hamar on Rørosbanen resulting in an explosive fire. 19 people were killed while 67 survived the accident.

1 Account of the accident
2 Aftermath
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Account of the accident

Memorial stone with the names of the 19 people who died in the accident

Train 2301, a train hauled by a Di 3 locomotive,^[1] left Trondheim Central Station at 07:45 in the morning on Tuesday January 4, 2000 with 75 people on board. It was on schedule with destination Hamar Station. At departure at Røros Station the train was delayed 21 minutes because connecting trains were running late. Still, the delay was caught up, and by arrival and departure at Rena Station the train was only 7 minutes late. At departure the signal showed green, and the log at the traffic control center at Hamar after the accident showed that also the main signal was green.

Train 2369, a BM92 diesel multiple unit,^[1] left Hamar Station on schedule at 12:30 with 10 passengers onboard. The train was headed for Rena Station, after which it was to return to Hamar. At Rustad Station the train stopped to pick up one passenger at 13:06 and, according to the schedule, the train was supposed to have a stop at Rustad until 13:10 to wait for the meeting train from north. When the train left Rustad at 13:07 with 11 passengers, including engineer and conductor, the log shows that the signal did not show green. The log also shows that the rail switch at the exit had been brute forced by the northbound train.

The traffic control on Rørosbanen between Hamar and Røros is controlled by the Train Control Center at Hamar. The dispatcher was also responsible for watching the more trafficked stretch Hamar - Eidsvoll. A sound alarm that warned when two trains are on collision course on this stretch was not installed, and even if a message in red print on the screen had to have shown that an accident was imminent, the traffic controller was not aware of this until 13:11:30.

At the time of the accident neither an Automatic Train Control (ATC, a system for automatically stopping trains) or a train radio was installed on Rørosbanen. The only way to contact the trains was with mobile telephones. The numbers to the engineers and conductors on the trains had either been been put on the wrong lists, or had not been but on any list at all. Hence, the traffic controller in Hamar did not know where to phone and at 13:12:35 the trains collided.

[edit] Aftermath

On September 1, 1997 Jernbaneverket and Norges Statsbaner introduced new departure routines for passenger trains where only the engineer, and not both the engineer and conductor as before, where required to check that the main departure signal from a station showed go before the train started from a station. This was despite that the Norwegian Railway Inspectorate didn't accept that the new departure procedures were to be introduced on Rørosbanen, among other things because of the special conditions there. The Rail Inspectorate protested, also to the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications, and got support there, without this changing the actual departure procedures.