Year: 2014
Location: France
Company: RFF gave the wrong dimensions to SNCF
Estimated Damage Value: $68 million*
Companies like American Airlines might be busy ruling the skies, but what about the rails? Railways and the Metro are heavily used in France, so when the train operator SNCF decided to invest in a new transportation project it seemed like a good idea at the time.
However, even the best laid plans can be shoddily executed. 2,000 new trains that cost in excess of $20.5 billion hit the railways back in 2014, but there was a hitch. They were far too wide, or as some outlets like the BBC dubbed them, too “fat,” to safely squeeze past each other on the rails. The mistake cost SNCF almost $70 million.
Apparently the error happened when the RFF, the rail network operator, measured platforms that had been built 30 years ago. They thought it was a “one size fits all” situation, not taking into account the stations and platforms that were much older – and smaller – than that.
Flippant, Comic, and Serious 