Image: Soile Laaksonen / VR Group

Initial reports on the accident in Spain suggest that the train may have been going more than twice the proper speed.

VR's safety chief Rauno Hammarberg cannot imagine something similar taking place in Finland.

“We use a system to track and control train speeds. If the driver is going too fast, a warning signal will first sound. If the driver doesn’t respond to this, the train machinery automatically puts on the brakes,” Hammarberg explains.

The permitted speed varies at different track sections, and the train is not allowed to move faster than the maximum speed on a given section.

“The rail network has devices that know how fast a train is moving in each section. When the driver passes a device, they are informed that the speed limit there is 80 kilometres per hour, for instance,” Hammarberg says.

Accidents hastened speed control system

The automatic system to monitor and control train speeds was started in the '90s. Its completion gained urgency after the train disasters at Jokela and Jyväskylä.

In Jokela, Tuusula, four were killed and 75 injured in April 1996, after a train derailed due to excessive speed.

A crash in Jyväskylä in March 1998 that left ten people dead and 94 injured was also blamed on speed. With hindsight, rail officials believe that the current speed control system would have prevented the accident.

Hammarberg did not know whether Spain had such a system in use.

Worldwide, it has been a bleak July for train accidents, with fatal disasters also occurring in France and Canada.