10/11/2001 00:00
TW
0

Five passengers were slightly injured yesterday when one of the Soller train carriages came off the tracks at Palma station. The carriage was stationary at the time and the accident happened just before 10.30 a.m. as the train's locomotive was carrying out a regular manoeuvre in order to hitch up to the first of the five carriages and haul them off to Soller at 10.30. The Palma station has three rail tracks, two of which are used by the locomotives which have to change the end of the train at the end of every journey. Yesterday it appears that the train driver mistakenly used the wrong piece of track and collided with the fifth and last carriage, the oldest of the five carriages in use yesterday. Despite the fact that the locomotive was moving extremely slowly, its shear weight was enough to nudge the carriage, with the five passengers on board, off the tracks. Being the last of the five carriages, it is always the last to fill up with passengers, hence there were just five on board. Two ambulances rushed to the scene and all of the five were taken to hospital, but it transpired that the injuries were very slight. One of the Soller train employees said yesterday that in the railway's 90 year history, yesterday's accident was the first to have ever happened at Palma station. Either the train driver made a simple mistake or he did not realise that five carriages were being used, when normally the train pulls just four. The Soller train is one of Majorca's most popular tourist attractions and runs throughout the year. Yesterday's services were disrupted for a couple of hours while railway staff righted the carriage and shunted it back on to the tracks with the help of a crane; the carriage weighs around 13 tonnes. The railway company refunded the price of the tickets to all of the passengers on the train, the majority of whom were foreign. Damage to the carriage was minimal, a few of the straps used to board the train broke and some of the wooden floor boards were broken.