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There's a way but multiple things have to go wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szczekociny_rail_crash https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szczekociny_rail_cra

• tialaramex 3y ago
  Wow, that's a lot of places where human error was able to make things worse. Particularly the fact that it's possible to use a "subsidiary signal" to just override the problem. The equivalent British scenario calls for the signaller to vocally inform the driver (e.g. today over GSM-R) something akin to "Pass the danger signal at caution, obeying all other signals". This may mean if there are a multiple related failures, you need to "caution" drivers the same way repeatedly - but without that final sentence the driver may ignore signals that are not related to the failure you understood, and passing those really will kill somebody. The requirement to move "at caution" meaning with the ability to stop on sight means trains under these conditions don't go very fast - they can't, even on straight lines in broad daylight you can't see far enough to go full speed on a passenger train under those rules, but it also means if you screwed up and there is a serious problem the driver under caution can see the problem with enough time to stop. It further ensures there's an incentive not to allow such situations to persist as they presumably must have for Poland to deliberately fit the "subsidiary" lamps.