Draft talk:The train accident between Bjerka and Finneidfjord in 2024

Train crash at Finneidfjord - Copy of talk page from Nordland Line

Name of page vs List of rail accidents

• Comment: Please consider renaming this page to 2024 train derailment at Finneidfjord to make it fit into list of train accidents, where year always comes in front
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  This can be dealt with, when the article is accepted. Nthep (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

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I quote what I wrote on the user page of Norwegian Wikipedia user Ranværing. Takk means thank you and venlig hilsen are friendly greetings at the end of my message. I can read Norwegian, which was a great help while doing research.

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Takk, Ranværing!

Your draft article is a good job. I hope you can get it published, even though I was sceptical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:The_train_accident_between_Bjerka_and_Finneidfjord_in_2024

Are you aware of this list of train accidents?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2020%E2%80%93present)#2024

I would suggest to rename your article into 2024 train derailment at Finneidfjord, just to better fit into the existing convention for naming train accidents. I had the same issue with 2023 Stenungsund landslide when I translated the title from Swedish.

Also, please note that this train accident has claimed 2 lives, if you count the Norwegian car driver who died in Sweden, after crashing into the back of a truck, on the detour route for European route E6. You can find that in my text.

med venlig hilsen ~2024-12724 (diskusjon) 14. nov. 2024 kl. 05:18 (CET) (2024-9280)

Norwegian Wikipedia is masking IP addresses, but that was me. My hopes for finishing this draft are on Ranværing and maybe some other Wikipedia users. I have left you tons of references below. Archived versions to prevent link rot were added later in the train crash section of the article about the E6 road.

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Train crash at Finneidfjord - Explanation/Discussion

When I started to describe the accident in which a train crashed into a fallen rock and fell on the European_route_E6 below, this was just meant to serve as an example as to how vulnerable Norway's main arterial road is to unexpected road closures and how long detours can be up north.

I did not intend to describe this train accident in so much detail, but I got carried away, thinking somebody might want to find the latest information about this train crash on Wikipedia. Both the road and railroad were closed and Norway was cut in two, without many transport options left.

My intention was to boil this chapter down to a much shorter form, focusing on E6, but only after E6 has reopened. Between 24th of October and 6th of November I have updated almost every day, eagerly waiting for reopening of E6. I don't think I will have time to reuse my text for a more railway focused article any time soon.

Before all my work is lost, I decided to publish a copy on this talk page. It could be the start of a Wikipedia article about this train crash, in English. There is already a Norwegian Wikipedia article about the train wreck on E6 near Finneidfjord.

https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togulykken_mellom_Bjerka_og_Finneidfjord_i_2024

I have also rewritten an earlier version of my text, focusing more on the railway part of this train crash and it's published here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordland_Line#Accidents

I did not feel like starting a new Wikipedia article about a train accident in Norway however, because it seems mostly only relevant inside Norway, as no foreign news media have reported about it, as far as I know. Furthermore, I have some bad experiences with Wikipedia, so I felt discouraged, but others might want to try.

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We should have a separate article common for the train accident and the E6 road blocking and the causes. At least if we want to have this much detail. Or delete much information. There is too much info in the E6 and Nordland Line articles. On Norwegian Wikipedia there is a separate article. 82.173.160.29 has written a lot and should make a new article. User:BIL 18:40, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

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Thank you, BIL, for taking time to answer. My text as it stands now, is more focused on car and truck traffic on E6, than on train traffic on Nordlandsbanen, so my text needs some editing and filtering, if you want to use it for an article on Wikipedia. Do you want to invest time for this? Any volunteers around?

Can you defend such article about a train accident in Norway against allegations that this accident is not notable enough outside Norway to make it into the English-language Wikipedia? Have you noticed that securing the train tracks against rock fall may have not been done as well as BaneNOR was claiming?

I found an article pointing out some shortfall in BaneNOR's approach to security; I think it was written by NRK, but I have too many TABs open now, so I cannot find it very fast. You can guess that more news would follow, about who can be held responsible for this train accident in Finneidfjord.

What might count in defense for publishing an article is climate change: in stead of freezing once, when winter comes, the mountains will now freeze far more often, with temperatures shifting above and below zero degrees Celsius. This accelerates the process of crumbling the rocks and causes more rockfall.

What I really don't like, is the lack of information in English. My opinion is that an article for the English-language Wikipedia should not be swamped with sources in Norwegian to such an extend that one can only verify the references if one is good at reading Norwegian. I'm no fan of machine translations!

The fact that I refuse to register an account with Wikipedia seems to make people suspicious about my intentions. It even got so bad that I was falsely accused of sock puppetry and banned from Wikipedia for 1 month in summer, so please excuse me, when I say that somebody else should publish the article. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 19:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

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To make sure to get a reaction, I decided to write a message to Ranværing, because this user has written most of the article about the train crash on the Norwegian Wikipedia and he has started this draft article. First I quote my own message, then I quote the answer I got from Ranværing:

Togulykken mellom Bjerka og Finneidfjord i 2024 - Artikkel på Engelsk?

Unnskyld meg, jeg skriver og snakker ikke veldig bra Norsk - Kom gjerne og se denne diskusjonssiden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nordland_Line eller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:European_route_E6#Train_wreck_at_Finneidfjord_-_in_too_much_detail? Din hjelp er velkommen

Hello Ranværing!

After looking at your userprofile, I hope you can forgive me for writing to you in English. I could have written in Dutch, but I'm sure you will understand English better. ;-)

My Norwegian is limited to reading. I understand about 80 to 90% of what I read in Norwegian, without a dictionary. I found the train accident at www.wegenforum.nl => Internationaal => Europa => Noorwegen.

So, there I went and wrote a new chapter to he article about European route E6. I am at a crossroads now, about to delete more than half of what I wrote, but I hate to do that. "Kill your darlings" is not my hobby. :-/

Since you have written most of the Norwegian Wikipedia-article about the train accident at Finneidfjord, I am really curious to read your opinion about translating the article into English.

You are therefore invited to visit this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nordland_Line and tell me if and why the train accident at Finneidfjord should have an article in English.

Since I have had my fair share of problems on Wikipedia, I don't feel like investing much more time. I therefore refuse to register an account and write under my IP-number, but in good faith.

med venlig hilsen, ~2024-9280 (diskusjon) 6. nov. 2024 kl. 16:21 (CET)

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Hello. The reason why I wrote the article about the train accidence, is that this is local stuff. I live not far away from the incidence.

And I thought that this was of local interest. I see that someone has written an article in Enare Saami - a language in northern Finland. But none have written about it in Finnish or Swedish. Maybe I write a short stub in english and translate the Norwegian I have written. Mvh Ranværing (diskusjon) 7. nov. 2024 kl. 13:21 (CEST)

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There we are, just as Ranværing, who lives in Rana, has written: This train crash in Norway is local stuff, so I have no confidence that any attempt at publishing an article in English about this train accident would survive any sort of scrutiny about the importance of this train accident to the rest of the world. One needs to come up with a relevant reason why this train accident is notable. For now, I just don't want to waste my time on that, despite the kind encouragement I read in the comment written by BIL. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 16:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

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Answer here, please

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Please keep your contributions to discussion above this line; Below is body text that could be used for new article on Wikipedia, about train crash at Finneidfjord (also check talk page behind European route E6

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Train wreck on E6 near Finneidfjord (draft for new Wikipedia article?)

Main article: Nordland_Line § Accidents

On 24 October 2024, around 14h15 (2h15 PM) a train on the Nordlandsbanen railway line crashed into a rock that had fallen on the tracks. The train derailed, sliding down an embankment, towards the road below, which is the E6. Train driver Rolf Henry Ankersen was killed in this accident. Four passengers had to go to hospital. The rest of just under 50 passengers escaped with minor bruises and were evacuated by bus. The locomotive's front end, some trees and smaller rocks ended up on the northbound lane of the E6, between Bjerka and Finneidfjord. Police have closed both Nordland Line and E6 until further notice, to investigate the cause of the accident, evaluate risks of further rockslides and create free space to salvage the derailed train cars. There were also some fears that the locomotive and one or more train cars could slide further down the embankment, so it was deemed unsafe to reopen the E6.

Once again, Norway's main road is closed and Norway is cut in two. One detour, using FV17, involves a ferry ship crossing between Levang and Nesna, where waiting times are very long, as the ferry ship does not have enough capacity to absorb the volume of traffic that would normally drive on E6. The other option for a detour runs along FV73 in Norway and through Sweden, following AC1116 and European route E12. Both detours cost lots of extra fuel and driving time. A local couple started to use their fishing boat to transport people from the village over the fjord, past the train wreck. Eventually the local council took over this ferry service. Bane NOR announced on Sunday 27 October 2024 that they had to interrupt their attempts to clear the train wreck because the mountain slope was still moving. An earlier announcement about reopening E6 turned out to be too optimistic, when Statens Vegvesen announced on 28 October 2024 that E6 would remain closed until at least Friday, 1 November 2024.

Bad weather, which triggered red alerts south of Trondheim, has aggravated the landslide risk and delayed the removal of the crashed locomotive at Finneidfjord. An orange alert was issued locally, with a warning not to travel if not necessary. During this episode of bad weather both detours failed on 29 October 2024, when the ferry service between Nesna and Levang was interrupted for several hours and the detour through Sweden was temporarily blocked by a truck that needed to be salvaged. E12 got covered in deep snow and long traffic jams started to form at the Swedish-Norwegian border. The E12 detour road was closed again on Thursday the 31st of October 2024, after a car with 3 Norwegians crashed into the back of a stopped truck, on Blå Vägen (E12), between Bredviken and Kåtaviken, in Sweden. One of them died in hospital a few days later, as a result of his injuries. When the ferry between Nesna and Levang resumed it's service, they were sailing with only 1 ship, since the second ferry ship had technical issues. All that BaneNOR had managed to do by Wednesday, 30 October 2024 was clearing the fallen rock from the train track and towing three train cars, that had not gone down the embankment, back to Bjerka railway station. Postal service Posten announced on Wednesday 30 October 2024 that letters and packages were delayed, due to many closed railways and roads.

After a new evaluation of the situation on Thursday 31 October 2024, BaneNOR announced that the large cranes necessary to lift the locomotive away from the crash site had not yet been set up, because the moving mountain slope had to be secured first. Statens Vegvesen is hoping to reopen E6 by Monday 4 November 2024. BaneNOR stated in their updated press announcement that safe working conditions for their salvage crew is their first priority and they actually cannot promise any day for reopening Nordlandsbanen and E6. It was not possible to replace trains with busses, in order to offer an alternative to passengers on the Nordland train line, because busses would have to use same E6 that remained closed at Finneidfjord. Statens Vegvesen was strongly urging all car and truck traffic to take the detour through Sweden, until Friday 1st of November 2024. Customs authorities have set up temporary exceptions of customs rules for truck traffic making a Norway-Sweden-Norway transit.

On Friday 1 November 2024, Statens Vegvesen announced that E6 between Bjerka and Finneidfjord would be temporarily opened for guided traffic from Friday afternoon 15h (3h PM) until Sunday morning 7h. BaneNOR announced in their updated press release that the securing of the mountain slope was finished, so allowing traffic to drive past the crash site on E6 under guidance should be safe, but the wind was picking up, making it unsafe to operate large cranes, so the lifting of the crashed locomotive would not start before Sunday 3 November at 7h in the morning, when E6 was closed again. BaneNOR then used Sunday to prepare the cranes needed for lifting the crashed locomotive, but in yet another change of plan, Statens Vegvesen announced that E6 would again be temporarily opened for guided traffic from Sunday evening the 3rd of November 2024 21h (9h PM), until Tuesday morning, the 5th of November 2024, 7h. Statens Vegvesen has decided to keep E6 open, because traffic conditions on the detour road through Sweden were so bad, that taking the detour through Sweden is no longer recommended. BaneNOR rewrote their earlier press statement once again and announced that the lifting of the crashed locomotive was postponed till Tuesday, because changing weather conditions made it unsafe to start the lifting operation on Sunday evening. BaneNOR expected that E6 could be reopened no earlier than on Thursday the 7th of November 2024 in the evening, hoping the salvaging of the remaining parts of the crashed train would be finished by then. By 17h49 on Sunday the 3rd of November 2024 BaneNOR announced that weather conditions had allowed them to lift one of the two train cars from the embankment above the E6, which took about 30 minutes. The second train car was lifted away on Monday and the locomotive was salvaged on Tuesday. With the train wreck gone, E6 will now be reopened on Wednesday morning, 6th of November 2024, but BaneNOR announced in their last update of their press release that they expect to be doing repair works until the end of week 46. E6 can be temporarily closed for up till half an hour, whenever repair works on the railway might cause risk of rockfall. 82.173.160.29 (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2024 (UTC)