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Thanks to an outstanding effort by repair and recovery teams working on the site of a recent train derailment near Mount Christie South Australia, the ARTC can announce that the East West corridor was opened for traffic at 2100 hours this evening, Friday 5 September.
Background
At approximately 2130 Monday night a train from Melbourne bound for Western Australia derailed on the East West rail line near Mount Christie, between Tarcoola and Cook in South Australia.
The intermodal train carrying goods to Perth was proceeding into a passing loop in order to cross with a train travelling in the opposite direction.
Approximately 20m before the loop, 12 of the train’s wagons derailed, falling onto their sides and blocking the line.
The oncoming train was immediately halted.
There were no injuries associated with this incident.
Following an assessment of the accident it was discovered that the west end points had been severely damaged and in need of replacement.
In addition approximately 2.2km of track has been damaged on the east side of the east end turnout and 300mtrs of damaged track west of the west end points.