From dutch media:
Zeker 68 mensen zijn om het leven gekomen. Van de 58 zwaargewonden verkeren er 15 in kritieke toestand
Een trein zou ten onrechte groen licht hebben gekregen om door te rijden, terwijl andere treinen op het spoor stilstonden vanwege een seinstoring

Translation:
At least 68 people have lost their lives. Of the 58 people who sustained serious injuries, 15 are in critical condition.

A train was reportedly given the green light to proceed by mistake, while other trains were stopped on the tracks due to a signal failure.

 

some mistake...

 

Or a terrorist hack ... I hope not

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/28/...minister-described-what-led-to-the-crash.html

Spain’s transportation minister said a train crash that killed dozens on Wednesday appeared to result from an “inexplicable” decision by traffic control operators to tell a high-speed train to continue its journey when another train was stopped farther along the tracks.

The minister, Óscar Puente, said he spent the morning watching a reconstruction of the accident and listening to audio recordings of communications between the control center in Madrid and the trains that crashed near Toledo, and he gave a detailed account of what he said preceded the crash at a news conference.

At about 8:30 a.m. local time, an automatic train control system near the site of the crash went down because of a computer failure, Mr. Puente said.

The system — known as the Linienzugbeeinflussung or LZB — dates to the 1960s and uses external technologies, such as track circuits and axel counters, to monitor the speed and position of trains. This information allows the system to automatically calculate when and how quickly a train can safely move forward. It then changes railroad signals accordingly.

On Wednesday, the safety system was inactive along a stretch of about 39 miles, or 63 kilometers, of tracks, so six trains traveling along that section were automatically stopped as a precaution. At that point, he said, the control center in Madrid took over.

“The control center communicated with the trains that had stopped, and at 8:36 a.m., the decision was made to allow the train that eventually collided with the stationary Iryo train to resume its journey as normal,” Mr. Puente said, referring to the private rail operator of the stopped train.

 

The system — known as the Linienzugbeeinflussung or LZB — dates to the 1960s and uses external technologies...

So, not PHP/Apache?

 

When something seems too good to be true:

'Never-ending' cruise grinds to devastating end, stranding over 200 passengers abroad



Passengers say they were given just seven hours' notice to leave the vessel​

 

So, not PHP/Apache?

Some of the older systems are still running on 8085's programmed in asm. The problem here was in the wetware.

 

When something seems too good to be true:

'Never-ending' cruise grinds to devastating end, stranding over 200 passengers abroad
View attachment 372789
Passengers say they were given just seven hours' notice to leave the vessel​

The idea wasn't outrageous, but the devil is certainly in the details. I don't know if it was marketed with the kind of shady tactics that "time shares" are generally sold (and the concept of a time-share is completely reasonable and doable, it's just that few are really legitimately structured and operated).

How it should have been structured, in my opinion, was as a community interest property (like a townhome complex), with a management company and a homeowners association.

Whether the initial plan was sustainable from the beginning would depend on the actual numbers involved. The article talks about people paying $300k to $500k as a one-time purchase with no ongoing expenses. That's only doable if the purchase essentially endowed a fund that could cover ongoing expenses (at least for the life expectancy of the buyers, which since they were mostly retirees, isn't that impossible). But the article doesn't say is that this was a limited offer and that the rest were lower-priced purchases with monthly fees. The purchase prices ranged from about $120k to $450k with per-person fees ranging from $2000 to $5500 per month.

Some of the residents that they interviewed showed some possibly quite naive views. One said that they hoped the residents could buy the ship and keep on cruising. The ship is probably worth about $20 million, so they would have to pony about about $100k each just to purchase the ship. But that would be the easy part. They still have to operated it. With 156 crew, that means that every 3 people would have to pay the full-time costs, including benefits, of 2 crew members. A report at the time estimated that the crew expenses would likely be around $350k/mo, but that works out to only $27k/year on average. I'm skeptical about that, but that probably doesn't include the value of lodging and meals for the crew, so who knows. But that's still about $1700/mo per resident just to staff the ship. You still have to pay for food for everyone, maintenance of the ship, all of the regulatory fees and port expenses, and fuel. Still, it might be something that they (or someone) could look into, coming up with realistic numbers of what it would take to be sustainable.

My gut impression is that the company may not have been well structured and properly funded from the beginning and so now they are just trying to bail and cut their losses. I don't know how serious they were in trying to keep operations going. If they had been, I'm guessing there were options available. They touted the $8000/mo per cabin for fuel, but also mentioned that that was for parts of Asia. So stay out of those parts of Asia, at least for now. Operate in areas where fuel is on the lower side of what's available and operate on a limited cruising basis. Find places that you can stay in port for an extended period of time, perhaps a few months, until the economic climate improves. Be up front with the residents what the situation is and what the options are to continue sailing. Point out that while they won't be visiting as many places as frequently as planned, they will have the opportunity to get the kind of immersive experience in the few places they do visit that they otherwise would not be able to have. Plus, it's temporary until the economics improve.

I think on of the residents had the right and healthy attitude. They knew it was a start-up and a new concept, and that that meant there was a lot of risk involved. So they decided that if it lasted 12 months that they would consider it a good enough deal for the experience and that anything beyond that would be a bonus. They get to walk away with a lot of good memories and no regrets.