[thingie]

Czech republic, but you could, of course, see the same thing in Germany or Poland.

And of course, there are more frequent accidents on the lines that are equipped with only basic signalling. This year, a DMU hit shunting freight and one elderly woman died. But not because the DMU was badly damaged (I even think it's already back in the service), but because she wasn't sitting (the train barely left the station). I don't think that being in a heavier unit would help her. (Now, the line is being equipped with something that looks like ERTMS Regional, but... it's not. Another national standard...)

And yes, there are quite frequent problems with signalling failures crippling whole lines for hours (not causing crashes, at least). Almost like we can't have a thunderstorm without some failure.

[kposehn]

Ah, ok. Yeah, signaling in the Czech republic is a bit antiquated last I checked. They've been improving, but dispatching is really suffering as traffic density rises.

Thunderstorms crippling it sound like an issue with proper infrastructure maintenance/siting too.

[thingie]

Well, on the recently upgraded lines, there is an up to date system (bi-directional automatic block with cab signalling, not ETCS, yet, only GSM-R on the main lines), but of course, modernization is very slow indeed. Traffic density is hard to manage not because the signalling is deficient, but because various cost cuts that creates stupid bottlenecks (like not using grade separation at crucial junctions, or, also quite popular, not using switches that allow higher speeds to the diverging track).

(And we even got our own FRA-like nonsense: noise limits that demand to build a kilometre long, three meters high noise barriers for a single farm nearby the line in the forest…)