DAMMAM: The investigation into the death of five railroad workers on Oct. 18 has concluded that the fault lay with the “train supervisor's failure to adhere to instruction manual rules”. The five workers, all of Asian nationality, were crushed to death when a two-car maintenance train performed a reverse-maneuver and derailed on a passenger line in Al-Ahsa. One survivor was taken to hospital. The report from the Saudi Railways Organization released Wednesday also directed “partial blame” at the driver of the train. “He contributed to the cars derailing and failed to warn the supervisor of the need to secure the carriages,” the report stated. Investigators further concluded that there was a “failure in communications”, and also failures on the part of the firm contracted to carry out the works for “not sufficiently meeting safety requirements to protect workers”. Recommendations by the investigation committee included “the swift completion of the sophisticated communications project and increased efforts to address legal and technical issues holding it up”. The report has been submitted to Saudi Railways legal department to evaluate the degree of responsibility of each party and determine penalties before submission for approval from the president of Saudi Railways.
