Ursus rail crash

Ursus rail crash (Polish: Katastrofa kolejowa w Ursusie) was a major accident, which occurred at 6:20 a.m. on 20 August 1990 near the Warszawa Ursus railway station on the west side of Polish capital in which 16 people died and 43 were injured.

Ursus rail crash
Details
Date20 August 1990
6:20 am
Locationnear Warszawa Ursus railway station
CountryPoland
OperatorPolish State Railways
CauseSignal passed at danger
Statistics
Trains2
Deaths16
Injured43

Accident

Direct cause of the accident was passing signal at danger (SPAD) by Tadeusz Mościcki, engineer of Polish State Railways' Silesia Express no. 41008 from Prague Central Station to Warszawa Wschodnia railway station in a mist with very low visibility and overrode the last carriage of Szklarska Poręba-Warszawa Wschodnia PKP's stopping train no.6114.

Second train was travelling at 12 mph (17 km/h) while Mościcki was driving his 120-tonnes electric locomotive series ET22 no. 1054 at nearly 75 mph (120 km/h).

From circa 80 passengers travelling in the last carriage of Szklarska's train, telescoped by Silesia's locomotive, 15 were killed at the moment of collision and one gravely injured person died later in hospital. 43 people were injured.

Aftermath

Two commissions: one from Scientific Railroading Institute and Regional Laboratory of Automatic and another formed by members of National Labour Inspectorate never ruled with 100% certainty whether Mościcki passing signal at danger indeed or it was malfunction of signalling.

According to engineer of Szklarska's train block signal no.94 shown a red aspect which order to stop and proceed after two minutes with maximum speed of 13 mph (20 km/h). Mościcki stated during all legal case that the same block signal shown green aspect. There was no ATP-like system on PKP at that time.

Silesia's driver was found not guilty of the accident because of lack of evidence that signal had a red aspect ("all stop" signal) which would inform that there would be a train on preceding rail block ("in dubio pro reo" rule – "when in doubt, for the accused"). He never returned to work in PKP.

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Sources
  • J. Reszka, "Cześć, giniemy! Największe katastrofy w powojennej Polsce", wyd. PAP, 2001
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