Investigation after boomgates fail to lower at Ovingham level crossing for freight train

All maintenance work on Adelaide level crossings has been suspended after boomgates failed to lower for a freight train on Monday. See the video.

Maintenance work on level rail crossings around Adelaide has been suspended as a national safety body investigates an incident on Monday that caused a freight train to pass through an intersection with the boomgates up.

About 12pm, a freight train heading towards Perth hurtled towards a level crossing at Ovingham as boomgates failed to stop traffic.

Cars drove over train lines on Torrens Road as the train blasted its horn.

The Transport Department has confirmed a track fault caused lights and boomgates at the Torrens Road, Hawker Street and Belford Ave level crossings to stop working.

Police had to control traffic for about three hours while crews worked to restore the system and the freight train partially blocked the crossings.

It is not yet known why the boomgates failed.

Speaking on radio on Tuesday morning, the Transport Department chief executive Tony Braxton-Smith said multiple investigations were running, including the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator.

“We have stopped all of this sort of work pending the outcome of that review because we want to understand what were the contributing factors that led to this event,” he said.

Level crossings are designed on a fail-safe principle, whereby the boomgates should fall and remain locked down if there was an issue.

Mr Braxton-Smith described the incident at Ovingham as a “wrong-side failure” where the gates did not close and the fail-safe was not activated.

The last train passed through the intersection at 10.25am going north. At 11.20am, track maintenance began.

“There was some cabling work associated with that track maintenance work,” Mr Braxton-Smith said.

The owner of Fixland, a mobile repair shop that faces the crossing, Rooslan Gareyev, said he was fixing an iPhone out the back of the store when he felt the floor rumbling and heard the train’s horn blaring.

“I heard the horn increasing … very loudly and looked out to see the train stop in the middle of the road,” he said.

Mr Gareyev did not see the train enter the crossing, but after watching the CCTV footage captured by his cameras, said it would have been terrifying for those on the road and the train driver.

“I thought a pedestrian was crossing and they needed to move … I have never imagined that a boom gate may be broken.”

Mr Gareyev added that he had a dream his car was smashed in the crossing a couple of months ago, and the incident chilled him to the core.
The freight train, heading towards Perth, passed through the intersection at 12pm.

“The driver then activated his horn and his emergency brakes, but of course freight trains have very large mass, and even travelling at relatively low speeds take a relatively long time to brake,” he added.

“The driver has to be one of the people that we credit for having the outcome that we did because it was his prompt action and the alertness of the drivers of the cars approaching the crossing that prevented something much worse happening.”

The train remained stationary until all relevant on-site investigations were completed and safety measures undertaken.

A police spokesman said there were no injuries as a result of the boomgate failure.

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