hetismij

There has been a major train crash at Halle south of Brussels. At least 20 people are feared dead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8515855.stm


Thalys and Eurostar trains are cancelled until further notice.

alanRow

Eurostar trains to/from Paris are running normally

hetismij

Yes, obviously those from London to Paris are unaffected, but those to Brussels are not running and won't be for probably a couple of days at least. However the terrible news of at least 20 people being killed surely takes precedence over your little bit of pedantry.

Dukey

I am sorry to hear about this situation but I also appreciate knowing this has not adversely affected the entire Eurostar timetable.

MLF611

This is very sad news, although reports I've read in non-British media are putting the death count at 12 and the number of injured at 125 (or more). Still terrible.

MLF611

These photos show how devastating this crash was:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...-Eurostar.html

LoveItaly

Devastating, oh yes. Reading an article earlier didn't begin to describe how horrific this train accident was. A picture is worth a thousand words. And many of the injured passengers are said to have to have arms or legs amputated, sigh.

Judyrem

They theorized that there was a language problem. That is a tragic accident.

MLF611

I read that about the language problem too. But the preliminary findings are that one of the trains ran a red light. I don't understand how they could attribute that to a lanugage problem--wouldn't a red light mean the same in both languages?

WillTravel

Because of recent accidents in the USA, the first thing I thought of was texting. I hope that's not the case here.

LoveItaly

And if I understood properly the two trains were on the same track headed toward each other. A receipe for disaster. I didn't understand the train running a red light either MLF, I thought that was an international signal for STOP!. Texting, that sure could be a possibility WillTravel.

northie

and the Daily Mail quotes "a language problem between Belgium and Flemish" --- someone's confused!!!!

Cowboy1968

I think you get a lot of nonsense information from the Daily Mail.

So far, I have not read in any (online) Belgium paper about a "language issue". The regional train ignored a red light and collided with an intercity train (not two "commuter trains" as the Mail states).

More "wisdom" from the Daily Mail:
<i>Although it is just nine miles from Brussels, Halle is in Flanders, where French is seldom spoken. Instead inhabitants speak Flemish, which is a dialect of Dutch.</i>
Brussels is literally surrounded by Flanders, and most Flemish do speak French while the French-speaking population in Wallonie rarely speaks Flemish.

I'd definetely not trust any of these speculations of a newspaper which does not even have a clue about the basics nor cites any sources for the "language problem" between Belgium and Flanders (!).

EastBerlin

Well the "language problem" is no surprise. The Walloons (French speakers) and the Vlaams (flemish/Duthch speakers) do not get along. They fight like cats and dogs parliamnet over tiny boundary disputes. I have tried to speak dutch to some French speaking Belgians and you could see the disinterest, if not outright hostitilty. The answer came immediately in English. The language divide in Belgium is almost like "the wall" effect before the Berlin Wall came down. I absolutly can see how a Flemish train operator and a Walloon train operator could not properly communicate. This is a shame in a country of ten million people that, otherwise, has a lot to offer.

northie

yes I can see that too EastBerlin but the Daily Mail(and people quote from papers as reliable sources) obviously doesn't realize the languages are French and Flemish. I was a post grad student at Leuven yet did not encounter any of the language probs-possibly because I was in Flanders and spoke English there and French/English in the French area

MLF611

I did not quote from the Daily Mail, nor use it as a "reliable source"--apparently Fodors posts aren't paragons of accuracy either. I gave the link to the Daily Mail article because its photos showed the seriousness of the accident.

And while not defending the Daily Mail, it's not beyond all reason to refer to Belgium's intercity trains as commuter trains during rush hour. Does no one from one Belgian city commute to another? Nobody from Antwerp or Gent or Leuven works in Brussels or vice versa? Friends who have lived there (and who thankfully weren't involved in the crash) say otherwise.

Cowboy1968

I don't think anyone made you responsible for the accuracy of the Daily Mail's coverage. It was a rather generic remark focused on factual errors in the coverage.

Train operators do not "talk" with eachother like airline pilots talk with air traffic control. The follow signals and pre-arranged rail paths where switches are set by far away controls. When a signal is red, a train is supposed to stop. You don't call that train in advance and tell the driver to stop.

The current newspapers say that it is not clear yet whether the stoptrein ran a red light, or if the red light was not given by the signal.
The line affected by the accident had been equipped with safety installations that send a "stop" signal to any train running over a red light. But the regional train could have been among those that had not yet been equipped with the device that receives those signals and relays it to an automatic emergency brake procedure with the train's control system. In other countries, this safety feature is mandatory and also signals the train driver a red light in advance so he can prepare to break.

TravelinGert

The whole thing is just sad, I read 18 reported dead in one of the US papers online. Judging from the pictures I saw, it is lucky if there were not a great deal more deaths. One of the reports I saw said everything was being checked, as it wasn't known whether a red light was run, or not given, or if an equipment failure might be the cause, and that weather made rescue efforts more difficult. On twitter it was reported by some of the uninjured survivors the weather turned nasty and wet not long into the rescue effort, and that is where the first pictures of the crash appeared online.
As LoveItaly said, many of the injuries were horrific, terrible for the injured, but I think we should also spare a thought for the rescue personnel. It can't have been easy, nor even very safe, for them to rescue these people, yet they worked hard and did it.

MyriamC

@ EastBerlin
<<I have tried to speak dutch to some French speaking Belgians and you could see the disinterest, if not outright hostitilty.>>
Most probably these people didn't understand Dutch, like most of the Walloons don't understand nor speak Dutch/Flemish. It's a shame that in a small country like ours learning to speak the other language is not enforced by law. In Flanders French is officially the second language, every child learns to speak French at school. In Wallonia the choice of the second language is free. Obviously children are much more interested to learn English than Dutch/Flemish!