Le Clerjus - English summary

On Monday, June 19, 2023 at approximately 7:25 p.m., on the boundary of the municipalities of Le Clerjus and Trémonzey (Vosges), regional express train (TER) no. 894627 from Épinal to Belfort hit an oversized road convoy that was stopped on level crossing (LC) no. 51. This oversized road convoy, travelling on departmental road no. 164, consisted of a tractor and a low-profile semi-trailer carrying a steel section of a wind turbine tower. It was surrounded by two light escort vehicles. Of the nine passengers on the train, seven were slightly injured and the other two were unharmed. The train driver was also slightly injured, and the train guard suffered a more serious ankle injury. The lorry driver and the drivers of the two accompanying vehicles were not injured. The impact ejected the tower section from the semi-trailer downstream of the train, lightly hitting one of the escort vehicles on its path. The train was damaged at the front but did not derail. The semi-trailer was damaged on its right front. The railway track suffered significant damage and one of the two half-barriers and its mechanism were destroyed. The direct cause of the accident is the semi-trailer getting stuck on the hump located before the crossing, shortly before the train arrived. This blockage resulted from a lack of attention paid to the severity of the hump by the lorry driver, due to : • focusing his attention on the inversion of the crossfall following the LC ; • the lack of reporting the difficulty in crossing the LC in the route survey ; • the absence of any mention of this difficulty in the convoy’s abnormal load permit. The vigilance of the train driver, who fulfilled his obligation to observe the track and its surroundings while driving and triggered emergency braking as soon as he detected the obstacle, made it possible to limit the consequences of the collision, the severity of which could have been much greater if he had reacted less quickly, or in conditions of lower visibility. In August 2023, the BEA-TT sent to SNCF Réseau, without waiting for the publication of this investigation report, an immediate recommendation for the inclusion of LC no. 51 in the list of LCs with crossing difficulties. The analysis of the causes of the accident, of its context and of the follow-up given by the various stakeholders leads the BEA-TT to seek preventive guidelines in the following areas : • Identification and management of level crossings with crossing difficulties ; the BEA-TT issues two invitations on this topic to SNCF Réseau, and a recommendation and an invitation to the Road Safety Delegation (DSR) ; • Road safety diagnostics of level crossings ; the BEA-TT issues two invitations to the General Directorate for Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility (DGITM) and two invitations to Cerema on this topic ; • The processing times for applications for abnormal load permits (an invitation to the DSR) ; • The preparation of the route for the convoy by the road haulier LASO France ; the BEA‑TT makes a recommendation and an invitation to it ; • The actions of the members of the convoy on the approach and on the LC ; the BEA-TT addresses two recommendations to LASO France on this subject ; • The fastening of equipment in the train driver’s cabin ; the BEA-TT addresses two recommendations to SNCF Voyageurs on this subject ; • The actions of train drivers following a collision ; the BEA-TT addresses two recommendations on this subject to SNCF Voyageurs, an additional recommendation jointly to SNCF Voyageurs and SNCF Réseau, two invitations to SNCF Voyageurs and an invitation to SNCF Réseau ; • Telephone exchanges between the services in charge of rail traffic management (an invitation addressed to SNCF Réseau) ; • Maintenance of alarm telephones at level crossings (an invitation sent to SNCF Réseau) ; • The procedures for analysing the accident within the SNCF (a recommendation sent to SNCF Réseau and a recommendation to SNCF Voyageurs). Finally, the BEA-TT invites professional road transport federations to share feedback from this accident with their members, and the Public Railway Safety Authority (EPSF) to share feedback from this accident with the railway companies.