Transport chief blames federal railways for Gotthard derailment
Destroyed and damaged tracks can be seen in the Gotthard Bass Tunnel. Due to the derailment of a freight wagon on August 10, 2023, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was closed to passenger traffic.
Keystone / Keystone
As a freight carrier, the Swiss Federal Railways’ cargo division is responsible for the accident in the Gotthard base tunnel.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA/ac
Español
es
El jefe de Transportes culpa a los ferrocarriles federales del descarrilamiento del Gotardo
The law is clear on this point, according to the director of the Federal Office of Transport (FOT), Peter Füglistaler, in the SonntagsBlick on Sunday.
The Cargo division bears responsibility as a freight carrier, according to Füglistaler. The subsidiary is therefore “responsible for operational safety” and must take the necessary measures. It is the subsidiary that must check the wagons before departure and therefore assume responsibility for them. This would be the case even if it turned out that the wagon that derailed because of a broken wheel disc had come from Germany, explained the official.
More
More
Why is the Gotthard Base Tunnel so important?
This content was published on
The historical, commercial and political significance of the world’s longest railway tunnel.
He rejected the criticism that the FOT, as the supervisory authority, was too lax in its controls. He added that companies even find that there are too many checks. As things stand, it seems that a very rare and unavoidable accident has occurred: a broken wheel disc.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate them into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Aging society
No house generation: the impossibility of buying property in Switzerland
Living longer: What do you think about the longevity trend?
The longevity market is booming thanks in part to advances in the science of ageing. What do you think of the idea of significantly extending human lifespan?
Switzerland to host European Political Community summit in 2027
This content was published on
The EPC summit brings together the continent's heads of state and aims to be a platform for political and strategic discussion on the future of Europe.
This content was published on
An unstable glacier above the Swiss village of Blatten has stopped breaking up, but there is still no question of lifting a landslide alert.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.