A CORONER’S Court has been taken through the details of a horrific train and car collision that killed three people in St Albans almost three years ago.
Last week, more than two and a half years after the fatal train collision that killed Ronaldo Antonio, his wife Lilia, and colleague Sanuran Muaremi at St Albans’ Furlong Rd rail crossing, the long-awaited coronial inquest into their deaths began.
The three died when a V/Line Sprinter express train ploughed into the car they were travelling in after it had become stuck on the tracks during peak hour traffic shortly after 6am on 5 August 2004.
For two and a half days last week the Coroner’s Court heard testimony from police officers that attended the scene, witnesses, emergency service workers, a Connex safety expert and a State Government safety manager.
The court was told that three police officers were busy attending the scene of a minor accident shortly before the fatal crash happened.
Senior Constable Ely Reynolds, who attended the scene of the first crash at the corner of St Albans and Furlong roads, told the court in a statement that he was talking to one of the drivers from the initial accident when the train hit the car on the tracks.
In his statement he said that all of a sudden he heard a loud bang.
“I looked up and saw a blue car being crunched by a V/Line Sprinter,” Sen Const Reynolds said in his statement.
Under questioning, Sen Const Reynolds said he didn’t think there was anything he could have done to avoid the second, fatal, crash, and that with hindsight he would have managed the minor crash, and the effect it had on surrounding traffic, in the same way.
“I wouldn’t have done anything different,” Sen Const Reynolds said.
The court was shown a video taken from the driver’s cabin of a Sprinter train travelling the same path, at the same time, as the one that killed Mr and Mrs Antonio, and Mrs Muaremi.
The footage showed the train passing through a brightly-lit station platform followed by almost complete darkness as the train approached Furlong Rd, the scene of 2004’s fatal accident.
“I think that (the footage) indicates that a picture tells a thousand words,” State Coroner Graeme Johnstone said after viewing the video.
Terry Spicer, manager operations and emergency management, public safety, for the Department of Infrastructure, told the court it was difficult for a train driver to stop when a driver had become stuck on the tracks.
“From the train drivers’ perspective, there’s very little they can do,” he said.
The court heard the train was travelling at 102km/h in a 95km/h zone seconds before the impact.
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During the inquest witnesses were questioned about Victoria Police risk assessment training, boom gate and rail crossing safety procedures, crossing lighting, and collaboration between police and rail authorities.
At one point Mr Johnstone questioned the effectiveness of the yellow grid lines (yellow cross-hatching) painted on the road around train crossings designed to help alert motorists where not to stop when at a crossing.
“I’ve never seen it before (the cross-hatching),” he said. “I don’t know what it means.”
Outside the court, 22-year-old Merton Muaremi, one of Sanuran Muaremi’s three children, said it had been an emotional experience sitting through the inquest, reliving the events of his mother’s death.
“Listening to all the lack of knowledge the police had of the risk or the danger that did happen is quite pathetic actually,” Mr Muaremi said last Thursday at the conclusion of the inquest’s hearings.
“That’s why we’re here, for other people, so it doesn’t happen to others,” he said. “I wouldn’t want others to go through what we went through.”
The State Coroner will deliver his finding on Thursday 5 April.
