Rovos Rail South Africa disaster

[wayman]

There was a runaway train in South Africa today, on what seems to have been their version of Grand Luxe (except much, much grander), Rovos Rail.

During a routine engine change, either somebody forgot to set the brakes on the train or else the brakes completely failed, and the entire seventeen-car train rolled away, built up speed, and crashed near the terminal. (Sounds like it probably hit a switch before the station, possibly a switch that was thrown to intentionally derail the train before it hit the station? The article doesn't say, this is just my speculation, since the derailment happened just before the station....) The article doesn't say how far the train rolled.

I can't tell from Rovos Rail's website how many trainsets they had, but my guess is just the one. I wonder how much of it can be restored.

 

[sunchaser]

There was a runaway train in South Africa today, on what seems to have been their version of Grand Luxe (except much, much grander), Rovos Rail.
During a routine engine change, either somebody forgot to set the brakes on the train or else the brakes completely failed, and the entire seventeen-car train rolled away, built up speed, and crashed near the terminal. (Sounds like it probably hit a switch before the station, possibly a switch that was thrown to intentionally derail the train before it hit the station? The article doesn't say, this is just my speculation, since the derailment happened just before the station....) The article doesn't say how far the train rolled.

I can't tell from Rovos Rail's website how many trainsets they had, but my guess is just the one. I wonder how much of it can be restored.

Here is some video.

There's lots of pics all over the internet of this train derailment, it looks pretty bad. One of the what looks like an club car or observation car went right through what looked like a sleeper. If you go to their website, rovos.com, you can see what a very beautiful trainset it was. IMHO, it's going to take a lot of money & time to fix those cars, if they can be fixed. One of the pics I saw showed the trucks on the track & the car next to it in the grass. I'm surprised more people weren't hurt or killed.