A day after announcing the nationalisation of the Sarmiento railway service, Interior and Transport Minister Florencio Randazzo said driver of the train that crashed on Saturday leaving almost 100 injured people should have been “fired” following the series of “irresponsible” faults he committed while on duty.
“It has been an absolute lack of common sense to have given him only a warning when he should have been suspended, that not to say he should have been fired,” Randazzo told reporters explaining that yesterday’s decision targets the service concession company in charge of the Sarmiento line as well.
“He only undertook the breath test and rejected the rest of controls saying there was a union agreement and the company allowed him to get into the train,” the Minister insisted renewing his criticism of railway unions. “There have been 156,000 non-working hours over the past year. It is a huge difference comparing it to the rest of the lines that had the same private operator,” Randazzo complaint.
On Saturday, a Sarmiento train hit a retaining wall at the Once station. Although the accident claimed no fatal victims, images recalled the February 22 tragedy last year when 51 people died and more than 600 resulted seriously injured. This is the third Sarmiento accident in 20 months. This weekend’s took place at the same station and same platform of the 2012 crash.
Source: Buenos AIres Herlad