Neufchâteau english summary (interim report)

On 22 May 2010, the last four wagons of the SNCF freight train 58701 derailed and toppled over in the middle of the tracks, just before Neufchâteau station.
Three of these wagons were tankers containing dangerous substances. One of them, containing phenol, was found to be leaking around the dome. This led to the establishment of a safety perimeter, followed by long and complicated sealing and transfer operations.
The accident caused no casualties, but there was significant damage to the infrastructure and major disruption to traffic.

The derailment was probably due to the failure of the front left-hand wheel of the first wagon to be derailed. Approximately one-third of the rim was found to be missing and there were circular cracks in an area around 300 mm from the axle.

As part of the protective measures taken by the French Railway Safety Authority (EPSF) and the investigation carried out by BEA-TT, similar damage was detected in a number of wheels on wagons in use.
In December 2010, in light of the information gathered up to this point, pursuant to article L. 1621-20 of the French Transportation Code and without waiting for the conclusion of the investigation BEA-TT considered it necessary to issue an initial series of safety recommendations designed to prevent a repeat of such accidents.

In this context, five recommendations were formulated :
- One concerning the extension of the wheel checking campaign
- Three concerning the maintenance and inspection of wagon axles
- One concerning the railway facilities on the Roussillon industrial site.

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