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Apologies for putting this on the main board as opposed to the International section but this defies belief. Yesterday evening, the 17.35 express passenger service from London to Plymouth (a city in the south-west of England) collided with an automobile on a crossing between Reading and Newbury, about 50 miles west of London, and derailed. More than 300 people were on board and the train was travelling at about 100mph at the time of the accident. At the moment, the death toll stands at six (including the train driver and car driver) with over 150 injured, more than 20 of them seriously. I have travelled on that route countless times, and as recently as a fortnight ago so you can't help thinking "there but for the grace of God" etc. Although it is early days there is nothing to suggest that there was any equipment, signalling or track defects or failures, and it is not believed that the driver was trying to beat the barriers. Whilst still highly speculative the police and investigators are working on two theories as to why the car was on the track: that it was a deliberate act of vandalism that went wrong for the driver.....or a suicide. I hope they are wrong, but if this is the case then in many respects I hope it was the former, as the driver got all he or she deserved for a wilful act that was nothing short of murderous, but if the latter it makes you wonder what sort of tormented mind that poor soul had, to drive onto a track and just sit there with a train bearing down on them.
Pojon Member # 3080
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Mr. Williams it happens almost every day with freight trains in the USA. We had a freight derailment in my town in northern Florida 6 years ago about 200 feet from my house which made everyone in the town come out to see what happened. The noise was deafening and it took 1 week to really clean up the right of way. Around here macho men rednecks think that they can beat the train and cause death and destruction at rail crossings.
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Geoff Mayo Member # 153
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With all due respect Pojon, it's not quite in the same league. Usually it's just the car driver who gets boxed up, not the train driver / engineer and several passengers. I was on the California Zephyr two years ago when we hit a car - zero visible damage to the lead engine. The lady car driver was on her way to McDonalds for breakfast apparently.
Sadly it does look as if this was suicide. But why destroy the lives of dozens of others as well? There was an off-duty policeman who saw the car parked on the crossing (before the barriers came down) but didn't have enough time to raise the alarm before the train came along.
Geoff M.
Pojon Member # 3080
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Dear Geoffm:
How about this one for the "same league"-- In 1972 when I was living for the summer in Port Perry, Ontario a car with 4 teenagers tried to beat a train at a crossing near Myrtle, Ontario and was hit at 80 mph by a RDC 3 car Canadian Pacific passenger train from Toronto and the 4 kids were killed and the train jumped the tracks killing the engineer and 4 passengers. The kids were so injued that the coffins were closed at the funeral for all three. A girl-friend of mine knew all the 4 kids personally from her school and she was hysterically sad for weeks afterward.
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Pojon Member # 3080
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Dear Geoffm--here's another one:
My wife and I were on the Empire Builder 11 years ago when it hit a van with 8 riders at a crossing near Minneapolis. 6 were killed and our train was delayed for 3 hours while the cops did there job, etc. The loco was hardly damaged, the van crushed like an accordian. The story was that they were trying to race the train to the crossing.
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George Harris Member # 2077
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It appears thatt he train stayed together and in line with the track, whether on the rails on not is not certain until it went over a switch point some distance away half-mile, maybe less, by now geoffm should be able to tell us, and at that point the train began to separate.
Geoff Mayo Member # 153
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Pojon, you've actually proven my point. Sad that two serious accidents occurred like that - but "only" two over a few decades? I assume there were more, but that is still relatively few considering the 220,000 crossings you have in the USA (I think the number is roughly right).
Mr Harris, the preliminary report came out today. The initial findings found no problems in the crossing hardware, nor the railway processes/procedures for level crossings. They also believe that the pointwork leading to the goods loop resulted in the derailment of the rest of the train. The main focus now is suicide. That suicide, if it was indeed the case, cost the lives of a highly experienced train driver, a mother and her 9 year old daughter returning from a shopping trip, and three others onboard that train.
Of course, the media are demanding investigations into such crossings, despite the fact that such an investigation was completed just three months ago as part of a (I think) 3-yearly review of all level crossings. The last crossing accident involving passenger deaths occurred *eighteen years ago*, but of course crossings are now inherently dangerous, according to the media.
Going back to the switch/point problem, I wonder whether the rigid couplings, designed to keep the train in line during derailments, may have actually contributed to the destruction? The lead engine was reportedly derailed by the car (no surprises there) - but would it have pulled the rest of the train off once it got pushed over by the rails on the pointwork?
Despite the carnage and destruction shown in pictures of the accident, although it is sad that 7 people died, it is a miracle and a testament to modern engineering that the other 290-odd passengers survived.
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