QCOSTARICA – Seven drivers who collided with the new trains of the Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles (Incofer) will have to pay ¢105 million colones (US$165,000) for the cost of repairing the machines.
The collisions occurred between May 26 and October 11 of this year, according to data provided by the Incofer.
In the first two cases, Incofer had to request extensions to the claims against the drivers because it failed to charge them for all of the repairs. Although from the beginning it had asked of them US$18,832 and US$5,995, respectively, it only charged US$4,907 to each one, so it had to start new processes.
For the third case, a charge of US$14,380 was made to the driver and owner of a pick-up vehicle who did not stop and collided with the train DMU 3126-76, on the morning of August 4, 100 meters from the train station of Heredia. That train had already been crashed on July 22 and had not yet been repaired.
In the fourth accident, which occurred on the afternoon of August 27, also in Heredia, the repair costs were US$29,509. This collision left damage to the doors, wheels, panel and covers of the machine.
Regarding the fifth and sixth collisions, repairs were estimated for US$2,623 in both cases, since only the side protection panels of the train cars were affected. These two collisions occurred on October 5 and 11, but on this last day there was also another incident that unleashed the most extensive damage on the entire list.
It was a heavy vehicle that was traveling in the Mercedes Sur de Heredia and that, according to Incofer, jumped the stop sign and the preventive traffic light, and invaded the dynamic gauge of the unit and collied with the train head-on. As a result of the blow, the stone remover, the front mask, the left side protection panel and the left door of the train cabin were damaged.
According to the case file, the Incofer was unable to collect the driver’s data, so it had to issue the payment to the company that owns the vehicle, called Transportes Samba J.C. S.A.
In the end, the machine was out of service for a month and caused losses of US¢4.4 million. When considering that sum, the cost of the repairs was US$91,084, a figure that makes it the most onerous of crashes.
