Saint-Hilaire-Bonneval english summary

On Friday 28 May 2021, the Enorail train was en route from the Brive-la-Gaillarde rear work base to the Limoges rear work base, before joining a work formation at a track renewal site near Limoges. It was running under the Infrastructure Manager’s (IM) certificate.
As the track-renewal train passed through Pierre-Buffière station, the traffic officer noticed that it was travelling with several axles, generating sparks and black smoke. Alerted, the transport dispatcher alerted the train driver and requested that the train be stopped. The train came to a halt on either side of a level crossing. A few minutes after coming to a halt, the fire that had broken out suddenly increased in intensity, giving rise to a blaze. The fire spread to the surrounding vehicles. The fire brigade’s rapid, effective and targeted response contained the fire and extinguished it, preventing it from spreading to the vehicles containing large quantities of fuel.

There were no injuries as a result of this incident. The fire could have had more serious consequences if a crossover train had been involved, or if the train had stopped in a tunnel or at a major station. Train operations resumed the next day after the train had been evacuated and the track temporarily repaired.
The fire caused significant damage and loss for both the train owner and the other parties involved (two burnt-out vehicles, loss of production, etc.).

The investigation established that the cause of the fire was the ignition of flammable material in the vicinity of the wheels and braking system, following excessive heating of the braking components of a bogie and fusion particle projection. This concomitance created the conditions for the fire to take hold, the result of several contributing factors :
- Incomplete release (latent defect) of the SVB section braking system before the departure of the train from Brive-la-Gaillarde, undetected by the brake tests and by the monitoring system of trains in motion ;
- Prolonged braking in moderability with composite brake shoes, which led to the ignition of materials present in the environment of a bogie.

The BEA-TT issues recommendations on the following topics :
1. Revision of the design processes for “factory work trains” (unbreakable work train section with several vehicles) ;
2. Identifying additional elements to facilitate pre-start-up testing and instrumentation of future factory work trains ;
3. Revision of the regulatory framework for factory work trains ;
4. Revision of driver job descriptions and definition of the implementation of additional training for factory work train drivers ;
5. Extending the scope of information recorded on braking control parameters for factory work trains ;
6. A review of the conditions for maintaining brake application detection systems in operational condition.