In the early hours of today, a freight train transporting Suzuki cars derailed on the descent from the Arlberg tunnel in Austria. Only the locomotive driver was lightly hurt, but material damage was significant. So far it is known that the train oversped, because it couldn't be slowed down "properly" on the descent.

[This comment is a repost with reduced images; I toggled the original because too big hotlinked images were a problem; image source & credit: Vorarlberg Online]

Apparently, only the locomotive braked, the train didn't. The only way this could happen is if the brake system was disabled on the car next to the locomotive, and the train personal omitted a proper brake check before departure.

There is a precedent: on 26 February 2002, a piggyback train with a car with disabled brakes at the end was turned at the station where there was a change in train operators, the new train personal didn't check brake function at the end of the train, and thus couldn't brake at Wampersdorf (near Vienna) when another train stopped ahead of it, 6 dead.

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