Comment by zhfanlqeo

19 days ago

The train in question is a Frecciarossa 1000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frecciarossa_1000

The Italians designed it but won't run it at more than 300km/h in Italy citing local infrastructure concerns. I guess that leaves other countries to find the edge cases. I'll be interested to find out how fast it was going during the crash.

Looks like a Frecciarossa 1000 derailed in 2020 but it was due to a manufacturer defect in a track switch replaced the night before.

The defect was not caught by the manufacturer or the system operator. It was due to two crossed wires in an assembly.

I know a lot more engineering goes into these trains due to the higher stakes. Japan’s high speed rail hasn’t had a fatal accident in 60 years. I’m wondering what the cause of this will turn out to be.

  • Actually the defect was detected by the operators, who installed it that night. They disabled the switch, but apparently this didn't reach the day shift.

Yeah but for this accident both trains were well below 300 km/h at the incident site. Around 210 km/h I think.