Normal rail services on the line between Luxembourg and Thionville should be resumed on Sunday evening following the fatal crash this Tuesday morning.
Representatives of CFL say that the the driver of the passenger train en route to Thionville failed to respond to a stop signal but that they are still not sure how this happened.
As repair work on the line continues so too do the investigations into the cause of the crash. Authorities are still trying to recover one of the two black boxes installed on the train which will have recorded the train’s speed and the actions of the driver at the time of and preceding the crash.
According to Marc Wengler, director general of CFL, and Jeannot Waringo, president of the board of directors of CFL, the train was fitted with a “failsafe” security system which should normally override the driver and stop the train in the event that he fails to respond to signals.
However, the ETCS system was not activated for this route as it is not approved for use in France, where a different safety system is employed.
350 metres past the stop light, the passenger train hit a freight train coming from France which had switched tracks in order to transfer to another line.
It is a legal requirement that all new, upgraded or renewed tracks and rolling stock in the European railway system should adopt ETCS, which has been implemented across the Luxembourg network at a cost of €33 million.
Mr Wengler said that the driver of the train, who died in the crash, had been working with the company for more than 15 years.
