An ugly part of the story I left out there was that the first photos of the accident were sent by some emergency personnel to an infamous far-right website, which titled its article thusly: "Thank you, Gypsies!" -- assuming for certain that (1) the signals didn't work because of cable thiefs and (2) the cable thiefs were Gypsies; and that (3) no one else was to blame.

But by today, we know that the signals were dead because of an underground shortcut -- and evidence points at some human error. According to the black boxes, the InterCity travelled at 10-15 km/h, the commuter train followed at 100-110 km/h (from which it could brake to 70-80 km/h before crash). However, following a signal defect, the automatic on-board train control should have kept the commuter train at 15 km/h, too -- unless it was somehow overridden.

The commuter train's driver claims the last station manually set a free route signal for him. On the other hand, it is said he wasn't alone in the driver's cab.

Someone will go to prison for this... :-(

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}