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Is it normal for a water balloon to break the windshield of a locomotive, injure a driver and a driver’s assistant, and lead to a situation that endangers the lives and health of hundreds of BDZ customers?
This is exactly what happened today.
The official version of the state railway company reads as follows:
“The fast train № 8601 from Sofia to Burgas stayed at Septemvri station for 62 minutes due to the breaking of the windshield of the locomotive cabin. When the composition passed by the fast train № 8640 from Stara Zagora to Sofia in the The section between Belovo and Septemvri, an object was thrown from the last train car from Stara Zagora at the express train that was passing in the opposite direction to Burgas.
As a result of the act, the windshield of the moving locomotive, which serves the express train from Sofia to Burgas, broke. The driver and the locomotive driver’s assistant were injured when the glass was broken.
Immediately a signal was given on 112 and the competent services were activated to identify the perpetrators.
Such demonstrations are a severe invasion not only of BDZ property and locomotive personnel, but also endanger the life and health of the train passengers. The Society strongly condemns any assault that endangers life and hopes that the perpetrators will be subjected to the full force of the law. “
The version of the railroad workers that OFFNews talks to is quite different. According to them, the incident was really dramatic, it could have had very serious consequences, but the fault of what happened lies with … the BDZ itself. The “object” thrown by the oncoming train was not a cobblestone, stone, or metal rod, but a simple blue globe filled with water.
The remains of the blue balloon can also be seen in photos of the incident, distributed by BDZ, in the lower right of the seat.
Even if they did it funny youngsters, they could hardly have expected to hurt the two drivers by launching a water balloon. It is much more likely that his goal was to make an inappropriate joke by splashing his glass with water.
What is even more absurd in this case is that just a month ago the Skoda locomotive number 44-174, which was towing the train in question, underwent a serious technical repair. The state-owned BDZ has established hundreds of thousands of cams for the “adjustment” of such machines, but, nevertheless, apparently the task of the improvements was not to replace the windscreens with impact resistant ones.
The locomotive in question is nearly 40 years old and its factory windows are made with outdated and disused technology. In the event of breakage, they are sprayed on sharp and dangerous parts for conductors, while modern requirements are to use triplex glass, which does not allow their fragmentation, the specialists explained to OFFNews.
According to them, these incidents are too easy to achieve. A collision with a larger bird, such as an owl, can lead to the same result.
The assistant driver, who has severe cuts to his face and minor injuries to his body, was more seriously injured by the transport crew. He got off at Septemvri station, covered in blood and water from the balloon. The man is very young, in a few months of service and has already told his colleagues that this is his last duty.
Dummy repairs in the BDZ system are one of the traditional ways to drain state railways. Today, almost all of the company’s public acquisitions are long overdue, and the company suffers from a constant shortage of locomotives and railcars.
