Background
Viareggio is a city of 60241 people (as of August 2020) in the northwest of Italy. The city lies on the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, 22km/13.5mi north-northwest of Pisa and 112km/69.5mi southwest of Bologna (both measurements in linear distance).
Viareggio station can be found in the center of the city, connecting it to two railway lines. Most trains reach the station on the Genoa-Pisa railway, a 165km/103mi long double-tracked electrified mainline running along the western coast of Italy. Opened in segments between 1861 and 1874 the railway is one of the most important routes for the Italian national railway (FS). The route is used by regional and long distance passenger services including international connections to France and Switzerland as well as national and international freight traffic. In addition to the main line Viareggio is also the starting point of the Viareggio-Florence railway, a 100km/62mi double-tracked electrified main line opened in 1890. Viareggio itself has its economy largely based around tourism, offering 10km/6mi of beaches and mild to warm weather year round.
The train involved
Freight train 50325 was a fourteen-car tanker train carrying LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) from a refinery at Trecate (near Milan) to Gricignano (near Naples, further down the coast). Pulling the train was FS series E655 175, a six axle electric freight locomotive weighting 120 metric tons at 18.3m/60ft in length. The series 655 is the freight-version of the E656, which can pull heavier trains thanks to a different gearing. As a downside, those freight locomotives are limited to just 120kph/75mph.
The tanker cars were owned by GATX-Austria, the Austrian subsidiary of the Chicago-based GATX Corporation, an equipment finance/leasing company. The forward car was in service with the PKP (Polish State Railways), while the other 13 were in service with the DB (German national railway). The train was a chartered service by SARPOM, an Italian Oil company. The exact type of the tanker cars involved in the accident is unknown. They were four-axle cars with a singular large tank holding the pressurized gas. The cars vary in length from 14.7m/48ft to 18m/59ft and hold around 85m³/3002 cubic feet of gas. Each tanker car features a distinct curved roof above the tank meant to shield the tank from sunlight and reduce interior temperature. The cars are also fitted with emergency release valves designed to release gas in a controlled manner in an emergency, avoiding an explosion.
The accident
On the 29th of June 2009 at 11:45pm freight train 50325 is cleared to pass through Viareggio station on its way down the western coast of Italy. The two drivers were relatively relaxed as their train entered the station on track 4 at approximately 90kph/56mph. As the train neared the beginning of the platform the crew on the locomotive suddenly felt a jolt, followed by the train automatically applying the brakes for an emergency stop. The second car’s forward axle had derailed, causing the car to scrape along the side of the platform. This tore it off the leading car, causing the jolt (from the sudden loss of weight) and the emergency stop to be initiated (as the pneumatic lines for the brakes were separated).
The derailed car climbed the platform on the right and fell over to its left, pulling 4 more cars along. As it fell over the tank on the car was pierced by an unknown piece of railway infrastructure, releasing the pressurized gas which immediately ignited. A fireball flared up, engulfing the locomotive for a moment before dying down. The locomotive came to a stop 200m/656ft past the station scorched and charred but intact, pulling along a single tanker car with the rear coupler torn off. Behind them flames spread across the station, fueled by the emergency release valves of the derailed forward tanker cars. As the gas was heavier than normal air it stayed close to the ground, spreading over a vast area covering the tracks and starting to flow into the surrounding streets as the area was illuminated in the orange glow of the fire. Some of the cars had run off the track into surrounding buildings, only the last six cars remained on the track.
Moments after the train had derailed the fire became so severe that the train cars’ valves were no longer able to release the gas fast enough, causing a massive explosion to erupt from the station, throwing ballast, pieces of train cars and railway infrastructure high into the air. By all means it looked like the quiet Italian city had become the doorway to hell. Several houses near the railway lines became engulfed in flames with some houses collapsed during the ensuing inferno, cars parked next to the tracks burned down and the station building got scorched. Witnesses report seeing people running down the street on fire before collapsing as new fires seemed to erupt all over the place, wherever the flames got a hold of new material before the gas was burned up. 11 people died in the immediate aftermath of the derailment, many more suffering often severe burns as the burning gas came through windows or under doors as the residents slept.
Aftermath
Immediately after the derailment the freight train driver notified the dispatcher of the accident, saying they were alright on the locomotive but to send ambulances and the fire department in case someone survived the fire and explosions he had witnessed behind him. The driver and engineer abandoned the locomotive and sought cover behind a nearby wall, keeping them safe from further fire and explosions. Arriving responders immediately asked for a catastrophic state of emergency to be declared as they saw themselves hopelessly under-equipped to deal with an inferno of this size. Around 1000 residents were evacuated from the area, over 100 of them would end up losing their homes. The fire gutted and partially leveled two blocks of flats, a road that had been between the tracks and the flats ceased to exist. Responders did what they could to help the survivors, with ambulances and helicopters taking the injured to specialized hospitals as far as Rome. The reports note a case of a group of firefighters assessing the damage to cars in the area, and finding barely-recognizable remains of a small child in the remains of a car seat. Presumably, he’d been carbonized (the process of turning organic matter into coal) as his parents put him in the car to flee the fire and then went back inside to get his siblings while the flames got to the car parked outside.
It took until the next morning for the fire department to get the blaze under control and eventually extinguished, with the sight they faced at daylight being compared to the aftermath of a terrorist bombing. But there had been no threat, no sign of one being planned, much less anyone claiming responsibility. And investigators failed to find any evidence or remains of a bomb or sabotage.
Due to the character of their injuries many initial survivors lived for weeks after the accident before succumbing to their injuries. The last survivor to die after all passed away in mid-December, bringing the death toll to 32 with 27 people surviving their injuries and 136 people being left homeless.
As investigators descended on the remains of the train to find out what had happened they were visited by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who had arrived to “personally lead the operation”, only to be met by Boos and calls to, in nice words, go home. Initially the investigators looked into the possiblity of a damaged track causing the derailment or overheating brakes causing the fire. The CGIL, Italy’s national trade union, blamed the widely known bad condition of Italian rolling stock, a known problem. They were on the right track, although they accused the wrong party. Eventually investigators found a torn out axle near the beginning of the wreckage, which belonged to the second car in the train. Or rather, they found most of the axle, which had broken into two due to excessive fatigue cracks. The axle had sheared off outside the wheel where it would be guided by a bushing. Lacking the attachment point the axle misaligned and caused the bogie (articulated wheelset for two axles) to derail, setting the chain of events in motion.
It is normal for fracture cracks to form on the axle of a train car, but those are meant to be spotted during the regular inspections and be addressed. The aftermath of the inferno showed an axle that had cracked nearly halfway across, making it a matter of when it was going to break apart rather than if. The maintenance of the train cars was the responsibility of GATX, it is unknown why the cracks in the axle either weren’t spotted or at least weren’t addressed. While the investigation turned into a criminal one a state funeral was arranged for 15 victims at the local football stadium on the 7th of July, attended by over 30 thousand mourners, while another seven victims’ bodies were transported to Morocco and buried in accordance with Islamic rites. The same week, the station reopened in a limited capacity. Several houses had to be torn down and rebuilt, and while the overpass that had been caught in the blaze had remained standing throughout the fire it was demolished as engineers concluded the intense heat had weakened it too much to be safely usable.
In November 2009 GATX as well as the FS announced that they would try their best to repair the damage caused by the fire and to work out damage payments to the affected families. However, just one month later GATX refused to pay damages to 40 eligible persons. It took until Summer 2010 for suspects to be identified and an actual investigation to start, by December 2010 arrest-warrants for 38 individuals were issued in connection with the investigation. On the 18th of July 2013 trials against 33 individuals were started, the most high-profile one being against Mister Moretti, the then-CEO of the Italian infrastructure management company RFI (a full subsidiary of the FS). On the thirty-first of January 2017, after all appeals were exhausted, the sentences were announced. The managers of the FS and RFI were each sentenced to seven years in prison, the CEOs of GATX Rail Austria (the owner of the tank cars), GATX Rail Germany (the company that rented the cars to FS) and the head of GATX Rail’s Maintenance division were sentence to nine years each. While 19 other people were also sentenced to similar sentences, giving such severe sentences to people in high positions sent a clear signal about responsibility for one’s company. All sentences were handed down on charges of negligently causing a rail disaster Article 430), multiple cases of manslaughter (Article 589, part 2), culpable cause of injuries (Article 590, part 3) and culpable fire (Article 449).
On the 29th of June 2010, the first anniversary of the tragedy, over 20 thousand people formed a procession through Viareggio from the football stadium to the via Ponchielli, a road on the eastern side of the tracks at the site of the derailment. Arriving at 11:48pm, the time when the tragedy had started, a fleet of rescue-vehicles present at the site used their sirens to symbolize the tragedy before 32 strikes from the church’ bell were sounded, one for each victim. Trains passing the site during that time paid their respects by sounding their whistles or horns three times. Since 2010 this procession has taken place annually on the anniversary of the tragedy.
Today the same kind of train car is still in use, with improved maintenance hopefully avoiding a repetition of the catastrophe. The risk of unchecked fatigue cracks was well known even then, with some comparing the inferno to the 1998 Eschede ICE Derailment in Germany, where a wheel broke from excessive fatigue leading to a derailment that left 101 people dead.
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