Please Note: Information on this accident was oddly sparse, I did my best but it might not be quite up to the usual standard.
Background
Rumigny is a municipality of 284 people (as of 2020) in the far north of France, located in the Ardennes Departement 63km/39mi north of Reims and 17.5km/11mi south of the Belgian border near the Belgian town of Scourmont (both measurements in linear distance).
Rumigny lies on the Transversale Nord-Est, a double-tracked electrified main line connecting Thionville in the northeast of France with Lille in the country’s northwestern corner. The 359km/223mi long line is one of France’s main rail corridors, connecting the Channel Tunnel (to England) with Germany and Switzerland in the east. After opening in 1872 the line was electrified in 1955 and today sees everything from regional passenger services and freight trains to national and international express trains. Its main purpose are freight trains, connecting the UK along with harbors in the west of France with the country’s eastern neighbors along with the industrial infrastructure of the Alsace-region on the German border.
The Vehicles Involved
Travelling eastbound on the Nord-Est at the time of the accident was a freight train consisting of 12 four-axle tank cars, each one having a capacity of 50m³/1766 cubic feet. The train was loaded with phosphoric acid, a colorless and odorless but not harmless material used (among other things) in the production of fertilizer and rust remover as well as, in diluted form, in the food industry. Pulling the train was Europorte locomotive number 4006 (christened “Alesia”), a Vossloh Euro 4000 belonging to the private freight service provider Europorte France. The Euro 4000 is a six-axle diesel locomotive introduced in 2006, intended specifically for freight trains. Each Euro 4000 measures 23.02m/75.5ft in length at a weight of 123 metric tons and can reach 120kph/74mph thanks to a two-stroke V16 diesel engine producing 3178kW/4261hp.
Heading southbound through Rumigny at the same time was an oversized transport conducted by a German company specializing in the transport of large boats. The boat was transported on a specialized low-floor trailer with a support-structure that could accommodate boat’s hull, and was pulled by a third generation Volvo FH500 semi-truck. The weight of the truck, trailer and cargo is unknown, as is the size of the boat, but the steel trailer alone must have provided substantial resistance.
The Accident
On the 16th of June 2021 a heavy transport carrying a boat is driving southbound through northeastern France, turning into the D27 country road near Rumigny’s southern edge at approximately 3:10am. As usual for transports of excessive size/weight the transport is accompanied by an escort van securing the truck to traffic catching up to it from behind, and has to adhere to a strict, preplanned route approved by the local government telling the truck driver exactly where he can and can’t go at which times. The truck slowly heads down D27 until it reaches a level crossing 345m/1135ft from the road’s origin, where the D27 is crossed by the Transversale Nord-Est. The crossing, which is secured with barriers and lights, lies in a sharp S-turn of the narrow road, with a gravel shoulder on the (from the truck driver’s perspective) left hand side and a resident’s fence on the right hand edge of the tarmac.
The truck itself makes it across the train tracks at approximately 3:12am, only for the trailer to run out of ground clearance and become beached on the level crossing, forcing the whole convoy to stop. The truck can pull the heavy load alright when it's just on its wheels, but with the steel beams of the trailer sitting on the ground the friction is too much for the truck’s engine to overcome. To make matters worse the level crossing’s lights and bell turn on just after the truck becomes beached, soon followed by the barriers lowering, with the southern barrier dropping between the truck’s cab and its trailer. The driver, knowing a train is coming and finding himself unable to free the trailer, is left with no choice but to abandon his stricken truck. At the same time the driver of the inbound freight train spots the massive obstacle in his path and triggers an emergency stop, but it’s too late to avoid disaster. The freight train runs into the side of the trailer at 3:15am, still travelling at 92kph/57mph. The low trailer acts like a ramp for the locomotive, launching it into the air as the trailer is torn in half. The locomotive obliterates the boat before crashing back down to earth, rolling over and turning sideways before coming to a rest a short distance past the crossing. Behind it seven of the freight cars derail, with three being ruptured as they crash into each other and/or fall over. The driver of the freight train survives the spectacular derailment with minor injuries (some sources list a cracked rib and a collapsed lung), the truck driver escapes injury as he abandoned his vehicle moments before impact.
Aftermath
The crash sparks a fire which consumes whatever was left of the boat before arriving firefighters manage to contain it, just as the information reaches them of the toxic cargo being spilled just a short distance down the rail line. A special unit of firefighters is deployed, working to contain the spill as far as possible. To an onlooker, by the time daylight breaks, it may have looked like a kid threw a tantrum while playing with a model railway, and then proceeded to add alien figures.
The firefighters manage to contain one ruptured train car’s cargo and limit/stop the leakage from the two others, but they can’t prevent some of the acid from reaching a nearby river, where it leads to a surge in dying fish along with a ban on swimming in or feeding animals from the river having to be issued.
The direct cause of the accident is as obvious as it could be, the heavy transport became beached on the level crossing which left it perfectly positioned for the train to plow right into the broadside of it. It’s not the first time that a truck has been hit at a level crossing, not even the first time a heavy transport was struck by a train at a level crossing in western europe. Just two years prior a heavy transport carrying construction equipment had become beached at a level crossing in Northern Germany, leaving it to be struck by an incoming passenger train (the accident was covered in this early installment of this series) . An accident so similar, it had even involved the same model of truck.
However, in contrast to most accidents where cars are struck by trains, it’s not as straightforward with heavy/oversized transports. As mentioned above, the drivers don’t have freedom over when and where they drive, having to adhere to a strict route provided by the local governments. Furthermore, they are escorted by police and/or transport assistants who are meant to ensure a safe journey. That morning at the level crossing outside Rumigny, several of these components had failed. First of all, the road across the level crossing isn’t level. It runs over a small crest and then down as the crossing is approached, levels off by the train tracks and then descends further into the left hand turn following the crossing, only for the turn to ascend slightly. Furthermore, the turns themselves introduce additional changes in the relative position of the truck and the road surface.
It’s easy to say “well, then obviously these transports can’t take the D27”, but that’d be too simple. According to some sources the transport involved in the accident was just one of many taking that route, who do so without incident. Oversize transports do require individual routing and evaluation, and while it’s safe to assume that the challenge of the railway crossing was underestimated there is more to it. The crossing at Rumigny was equipped with an emergency telephone in a bright orange casing, allowing a direct contact to emergency services. Yes, the transport was meant to take the path across the crossing, but with a vehicle as non-standard as the boat-carrier trailer a simple call to authorities, either via the trackside phone or via a normal telephone, seems sensible. Furthermore, once the truck became lodged in the path of the train, neither the truck driver nor his assistant from the escort van thought to use the trackside phone to get a warning issued to approaching trains. It may have been a close call, pun not intended, but a quick call to the authorities followed by a hurried warning via train radio could have most certainly prevented the collision, or at the very least drastically reduced the speed of the train on impact, giving a warning before the obstacle came into the train driver’s field of view.
There is no public record of anyone involved in the accident being charged with a crime because of their role in the accident, which usually means that no party was found to carry sufficient criminal guilt. Not the driver of the truck, not his employer/the owner of the truck and trailer, not the escort van driver, nobody from the local government who approved the route, and obviously not the train driver. The local government failed to adequately plan the route, neither the truck driver nor his coworker in the escort van called ahead to notify the railway of their intention to cross the rail line with an unusual vehicle, and, lastly, the escort van driver didn’t think to use the emergency phone to have approaching trains warned/stopped.
The disappointing part is, that there is no defined “fix” for the cause of this accident. Replacing all level crossings with over- and underpasses simply isn’t a realistic proposition, some cargo can’t be carried by train due to weight, size, origin or destination, and on top of it all there’s always the factor of human error, which can be reduced but not removed. Level crossings carry an inherent risk to traffic both on and off the rails, especially if an extraordinary vehicle like an overly long and heavy truck, which can be significantly bigger than a regular semi-truck, is involved.
All that can be done is trying to find ways to reduce the risk at level crossings, in cases like this one especially the risk posed by unusual vehicles. An oversize transport could be required to have a police escort for sections that lead the truck across rail lines, with the officers able to establish faster contact with the authorities than a civilian. Phones provided at level crossing also allow for fast contact ahead of blocking a level crossing or especially to warn the rail operator when an incident has occured that left the crossing blocked. It can also be argued that, perhaps, the approval process on the government’s side should maybe involve people with knowledge of oversized transports, not just of the area.
Some level crossings have been fitted with localized radar systems, automatically preventing trains from approaching the crossing or raising the alarm if they detect an obstruction in the crossing. As an example, some level crossings in Germany utilize radar systems which prohibit trains from getting closer than 1500m/4900ft to a level crossing if an obstruction is present. Other places use simpler systems as accident prevention, such as English level crossings who are often fitted with signage telling transports above a certain size/below a certain speed that their drivers have to stop and call to get permission to cross every time they want to cross the rail line. In comparison the radar systems mean less traffic disruption and don’t rely on human cooperation, but also carry significantly higher installation and operating cost.
The truck involved in the accident only suffered minor damage and was possibly repaired, while its trailer and cargo were destroyed and thus written off, as were the forward freight cars. Europorte 4006, despite derailing and rolling over, was supposedly rebuilt, but as of July 2023 I have been unable to verify the claim that it has been repaired.
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A kind reader is posting the installments on reddit for me, I cannot interact with you there but I will read the feedback and corrections. You can find the post right here.
