NSW: Train inquiry to focus on Blue Mountains incident

AAP General News (Australia)
12-03-1999
NSW: Train inquiry to focus on Blue Mountains incident

Crucial conversations between signal box staff and two train drivers may reveal why
seven people lost their lives in the Blue Mountains rail disaster.

One boy, three women and three men died when their packed commuter train smashed into
the back of the luxury Indian Pacific yesterday near Glenbrook Station, west of Sydney.

Fifty-one Sydney-bound passengers were injured.

Taped conversations between signal box staff and the train drivers could be pivotal
to the judicial inquiry after it emerged that both drivers were given permission to pass
a faulty red light.

Terms of reference to the inquiry, announced today by Justice PETER MCINERNEY, have
failed to satisfy the NSW opposition, which called for a wider investigation into rail
safety.

The four issues to be investigated are: the causes of the accident; rail safety improvements;
the adequacy of risk management steps and of emergency services response.

The bodies of the dead were recovered overnight after rescue teams prised apart the
car carrier at the back of the Indian Pacific and the mangled front carriage of the Lithgow
train.

Full rail services are expected to resume late tonight.

Floral tributes were placed near the site of the accident today as emergency crews
worked to clear the tracks.

AAP RTV dmc/sb/rat/pjg

KEYWORD: TRAIN (SYDNEY)

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