Comment by hecturchi

They told the train to drive "as normal". This was a controller mistake as the procedure says they could only drive in visual/slow mode.

Same mistake was made with other train and the driver replied that that was not allowed, and the operator corrected accordingly. But the driver of the train that crashed didn't raise the issue.

As it looks now the controller made a mistake when taking over manual control of the segment after systems failure ("continue as normal" vs "continue slow"). The train driver probably should have also known they should not drive at normal speed without safeties in the segment, but I guess they trusted control had cleared previous trains.

Between 10-20 minutes control room did not realize a train was approaching an occupied section where the other train was holding on a red track signal.

Human error but signals serious deficiencies at protocol, oversight etc. In control room.