Taiyuan, China—National railway safety authorities launched an investigation on Wednesday after a slow-moving freight train collided with a motorized track maintenance cart in Shanxi Province, leaving three railway workers injured.
The collision occurred at 11:20 a.m. along a industrial rail corridor near Datong during routine track alignment work. A heavy freight train hauling coal rounded a blind curve and struck the small maintenance vehicle operating on the active line.
The force of the impact destroyed the light rail cart and derailed its chassis, throwing three maintenance technicians onto the adjacent ballast bed. The locomotive engineer applied emergency brakes, bringing the freight convoy to a halt three hundred yards past the point of impact.
Emergency medical teams and railway rescue squads dispatched to the remote track section treated the injured workers on scene. Paramedics stabilized the technicians—suffering from fractures and blunt trauma—before transferring them to a regional hospital in Datong.
National Railway Administration officials arrived at the crash site before 1:00 p.m. to seal off the track segment and halt local freight traffic. Technical crews deployed a rail crane to lift the destroyed maintenance cart off the tracks and inspect the primary rails for structural warping.
Investigators are examining signaling logs and dispatch records to determine why the maintenance crew was on the active line without proper track block protection. Field teams took detailed measurements of the brake stopping distance and tested automated track warning sensors along the curve.
Maintenance workers replaced twenty feet of damaged steel rail and realigned crushed wooden ties before authorizing low-speed test runs across the line. Railway officials confirmed that the freight train crew escaped physical injury and provided blood samples for routine screening.
Railway authorities maintained single-track operational controls through the Datong corridor late Wednesday afternoon while safety audits continued.
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