3 ms·
Uhh, they cut corners on their train cars. Where we allow 1 inch of crush when an impact happens and limited twist, they allow a foot & change, with significant
by trome 10y ago
Uhh, they cut corners on their train cars. Where we allow 1 inch of crush when an impact happens and limited twist, they allow a foot & change, with significantly more twist allowed. There are other safety standards they are not bound to too, unlike rail in the US.
- pmyteh 10y agoThere's a fundamentally different approach to rail safety in Europe. The US mandates rail cars built like a tank, but has tons of open grade crossings and simple signaling systems. Europe builds lighter (== faster, cheaper, less track-damaging, more fuel-efficient) cars and invests a ton of time and money making sure they don't crash in the first place. Even given that, the survivability of a crash in a modern European train is very good. The Grayrigg derailment in the UK, for example, had an Italian-built express train jump the rails at 95mph and jackknife down an embankment. One death (she was 84). UK railways carried 64.4 billion passenger kilometers last year. The Grayrigg derailment was the last accident involving the death of a passenger. It was in 2007. How many road traffic accidents avoided by rail travel since then?