A true story of a train tragedy in San Antonio (2023)

FAQs

Has a train ever crashed into another train? ›

The Hinton train collision was a rail transport accident that occurred in Canada on 8 February 1986. Twenty-three people were killed in a collision between a Canadian National Railway freight train and a Via Rail passenger train called the Super Continental, including the engine crews of both trains.

1830. September 15 – United Kingdom – William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported passenger train death. During the ceremonial opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, while standing on the track at Parkside he is struck and fatally injured by the locomotive Rocket.

Train wrecks were shockingly common in the last half of the 1800s. Train travel was quite safe in the first half century of the 1800s. Trains didn't go very fast and there weren't many miles of track laid down. But around 1853, the number of train wrecks and people killed on trains suddenly rose sharply.

The Brightline, pictured here at the West Palm Beach station, is known as the deadliest train in the United States, averaging one death for every 37,000 miles traveled. Being the deadliest does not mean Brightline has the highest body count.

The train stopped the first time when a herd of buffaloes began to cross the railway track. Was this answer helpful?

Queen of The Sea, Sri Lanka

The Queen of The Sea train crash in Sri Lanka, caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami which struck in December 2004, is regarded as the worst train disaster in railroad history after it caused the death of over 1,700 people.

"The safest spot in a train, during an accident, is the center of the train," said Mann, who was the principal author of the Federal Railway Safety Act in 1970. "Because if there is a front-end collision or a rear-end collision, the damages will be greater at those locations.

Where is the safest part of a train to sit? ›

Sit in the center-most train car

When choosing a seat on a train, try to get one in the center-most car, or one of the central cars. This will put you as far as possible from the most common points of issue for collisions or derailment, namely the front and end of the train.

Trains are statistically much safer than driving.

The traditional method of disposing human waste from trains is to deposit the waste onto the tracks or, more often, onto nearby ground using what is known as a hopper toilet. This ranges from a hole in the floor to a full-flush system (possibly with sterilization).

Since passenger service began on July 4, 1828, sewage systems in trains have evolved from chamber pots to electrically operated flushing toilets.

Yes, they sure did. Early toilets ranged from a Hooper Toilet, which was a hole in the floor (drop chute), to primitive flushing systems. The waste was dropped to the track bed. For sanitary reasons, when the train was in the station, the toilets were locked.

As the world's most celebrated train, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express carries passengers across Europe in the style of a bygone era. The memory of the glamorous carriages, sumptuous cuisine, and personal service will stay with you forever.

An Amtrak train headed to Miami derails near Mobile, Alabama, killing 47 people on September 22, 1993. The accident, the deadliest in Amtrak's history, was caused by a negligent towboat operator and foggy conditions.

“Depending on the length of the train, as well as the length and number of tracks at a rail yard or customer facility, the train may have to move back and forth as it shoves cars into one track, backs out, and then moves forward to drop off or pick up cars on an adjacent track.”

Inertia of rest stops the train and takes the body forward.

As wireless technologies advanced in the 1960s, freight railroads began adding extra locomotives to the rear of trains to give them enough power to climb steep hills. This is how distributed power was born.

How common are train deaths? ›

Train Accident Statistics

Trains are estimated to kill 1 person every 100 minutes. Each year nearly 1,000 people are killed in train related accidents.

The ratio of railroad-related deaths to nonfatal injuries and illnesses is about 1:6. In 2021, of the total 893 deaths, 26% occurred at rail-crossings. Of the 3,216 nonfatal occupational railroad injuries and illnesses reported in 2021, 66 were attributed to highway-rail crossing incidents.

Nuclear and radiation

Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion. 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels.

94% of all rail-related fatalities and injuries occur at railroad crossings or due to trespassing. Sadly, almost all of these deaths and injuries are preventable. Trespassing along railroad rights-of-way is the leading cause of rail-related deaths in America.

Safety experts recommend rear-facing seats because passengers will be pushed into their seats instead of thrown forward, resulting in less injuries.

1. They are safer. There's some debate over whether planes or trains are safer, and it all depends on how you measure it. If it's deaths per billion miles flown, then planes win, but planes fly a very long way.

Be strategic about where you sit.

The optimal seat to prevent motion sickness is a seat in the middle of one of the first train cars. Be sure to choose a forward-facing seat, and if you're riding a double-decker train, stay on the bottom level.

The Conductor and the Engineer are both in the cab of the lead locomotive on an over the road freight train. The conductor is free to get up at any time to use the restroom. The engineer is the person at the controls who is actually operating the locomotive.

Safety experts also recommend choosing a rear-facing seat, because a person sitting there is less likely to be thrown forward during a collision. Trains are more likely to hit something side-on than head-on or from behind, according to the FRA.

What's the safest car on a train? ›

But if you are still concerned about safety -- or if you're just curious about which part of the train is the safest place to sit in the event of a derailment or crash -- science has an answer for that too. On a passenger train, your safest bet just may be to sit in the middle cars, or one car behind the middle.

Our advice, don't be a loud talker. By all means chat it up (not if you're in the quiet car… obvi), just do so quietly. All the space on Amtrak trains is a bit intoxicating in all the best ways.

Each room includes a big picture window, fresh towels and linens, and an in-room sink, restroom, and shower.

Room to Roam

Enjoy the spirit of a road trip without the hassles. Instead of being confined to a cramped, uncomfortable seat for your entire trip, a train lets you get up to stretch your legs and walk around to other parts of the train. That's not even an option when you fly, ride a bus or drive a car.

With simple wagon derailments where the final position is close to the proper track location, it is usually possible to pull the derailed wheelsets back on to the track using rerailing ramps; these are metal blocks designed to fit over the rails and to provide a rising path back to the track.

Because where a Hopper toilet is installed, the waste is disposed of straight onto the tracks. An East Midlands Trains spokesperson said: "Our HST's still have the old fashioned toilets which do drop stuff onto the track via a mixture with some disinfectant - hence the sign saying not to flush in the station."

Turnaround cleans are undertaken once a day when a train reaches its terminus, including deeper toilet cleans and rubbish collection. Heavy cleans are carried out regularly, with the whole fleet deep cleaned every eight weeks.

He went on to clarify that while some stations do have some CCTV within the “toilet area,” which might involve the entrance ways and perhaps the sinks, that there are no cameras near any toilets – especially not on the trains themselves.

Historically, commuter train lavatories would use toilets that drain straight onto the track, through a chute at the bottom of the toilet. This was known as a 'hopper toilet'. They ranged from a hole in the floor to a drop chute toilet and are still used in many parts of the world today, especially on older trains.

Early toilets ranged from a Hooper Toilet, which was a hole in the floor (drop chute), to primitive flushing systems. The waste was dropped to the track bed. For sanitary reasons, when the train was in the station, the toilets were locked. Railroads throughout the world still dispose of waste that way.

Where does pee go on a train? ›

Most trains don't have sewage tanks so anything in the toilet is dumped straight onto the tracks.

On a long-haul 747 flight, travelers might flush the toilets around 1,000 times, creating roughly 230 gallons of sewage—that's a lot of waste! When the aircraft lands, a “honey truck” siphons out the waste and disposes of it into the airport's underground sewage system.

Today's train locomotives are already quite fuel efficient, especially compared to trucks. In fact, trains can haul one ton of goods an average of more than 480 miles on just a single gallon of fuel, making them 3-4 times more fuel efficient than trucks.

— June 26, 2022: Three people in a car were killed when an Amtrak commuter train smashed into their vehicle in Northern California.

Trains cannot collide with each other if they are not permitted to occupy the same section of track at the same time, so railway lines are divided into sections known as blocks. In normal circumstances, only one train is permitted in each block at a time. This principle forms the basis of most railway safety systems.

The Maurienne Derailment – Between 800 & 1,000 Deaths

The single worst railway disaster in history, the Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne incident took place the same year as the previous disaster on this list.

It continued to be widely used by those unable to afford other transportation, especially during times of widespread economic dislocation such as the Great Depression. For a variety of reasons the practice is less common in the 21st century, although a community of freight-train riders still exists.

Authorities identified the passengers as Rachelle Cook, 57, and Kim Holsapple, 56, both of De Soto, Kansas, and Bihn Phan, 82, of Kansas City, Missouri.

The accidents may raise questions about the safety of train travel. While flying on an airplane is the safest mode of long-distance travel, according to the International Air Transport Association, trains are your best option on the ground.

The horn's primary purpose is to alert persons and animals to an oncoming train, especially when approaching a level crossing.

Why do trains honk when passing each other? ›

Why do trains sound their horn? Federal law requires the train crew when approaching a road crossing to sound the horn at all public crossings for the protection and safety of motorists and pedestrians regardless of whether crossings with gates and lights are present.

The railways use a train detection systems which can tell signallers exactly where every train is and how fast they are going. There are also systems that can automatically stop trains if the driver doesn't take the correct course of action or passes through a red signal.

However, this is not true since modern trains have more rail safety features built to safeguard the passengers. Although fatalities are not as common, serious injuries in train crashes happen abundantly. According to Statista, you have a one in 243,756 chance of dying in a train crash as a passenger.

On October 6, 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana.

Many hobos from this era have since “caught the westbound,” or died. A small number of so-called hobos still hop freight trains today. Unlike hobos of yesteryear, these modern freight train hoppers would not ride the rails to seek employment, but for the thrill of the journey.

In 1920, 2,166 trespassers were killed. But railroad police couldn't avoid the hobo problem. Called "bo chasers" and "car-seal hawks," they adopted extremely aggressive tactics. They took it as their job to terrorize those who rode the rails, often by any means necessary.

Popularized in the late 1800s and early 1900s, hobo code supposedly consisted of distinctive symbols to communicate vital information. They alerted other transient workers to trouble, such as an aggressive dog or hostile police force, but could also point the way to clean water or a hot meal.