Zanthus train collision

The Zanthus train collision occurred at a crossing loop on the Trans-Australian Railway between Perth and Sydney on 18 August 1999.

[1] The second engineman was waiting at the control panel for the points for the opposing train to pass through.

Twenty-one passengers and crew from the Indian Pacific were airlifted by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to Kalgoorlie Hospital from the remote Coonana airstrip, 40 km (25 mi) from the crash site.

Westrail provided two Prospector railcars to transfer the remainder of the passengers back to Kalgoorlie.

This accident happened because the points were not fully interlocked, and were merely a kind of power-assisted hand lever, with automatic normalisation.