4 ms·

Good luck: in the UK the worst train accidents with the largest number of fatalities have been due to poor track maintenance. The accidents have tended to occur

Good luck: in the UK the worst train accidents with the largest number of fatalities have been due to poor track maintenance. The accidents have tended to occur on commuter trains with high passenger numbers and many people standing. Not sure what the French have seen as history on their much faster trains.

dpearson 15y ago
Track has been an issue in the US, as has losing track of trains and having collisions. The vast majority of fatalities are exactly what these laws won't help with: people swerving the gates, or walking on the tracks.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Or a boat crashing into a rail bridge pier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Big_Bayou_Canot_train_wreck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Big_Bayou_Canot_train_wrec... (Honestly, I feel like this is one of those "cannot be avoided" situations.)
- billpaetzke 15y ago
  Or parking your car on the tracks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Glendale_train_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Glendale_train_crash
cdavid 15y ago
There is a link in the article about TGV accidents (although to be fair, it is a website about TGV, so maybe biased toward TGV safety, I dunno). It should be noted though that the French railway system is pretty good from a quality POV, if only because it is used so much (traveling within France by plane rarely makes sense time-wise, and buses are rarely used). The situation may not apply to the US, although it would certainly remain a safe transportation. But I think it is a bit disingenuous not to mention critical factors like low-cost flight companies, huge facilities in the vicinity of airports and big net of inter-states buses. None of that is really true in France (there are low cost flight companies, but they go to airports which make it a non-starter for business).
mtts 15y ago
Dunno about the UK, but in the Netherlands we get news about major train accidents in surrounding countries and I don't think I've ever (well, maybe once or twice) read about a TGV accident. ICE (German high speed rail) accidents, on the other hand, happen at least once every couple of years. Which I always find ironic because French sloppiness is as proverbial over here as German precision.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > I don't think I've ever (well, maybe once or twice) read about a TGV accident. There are accidents pretty regularly (thought not frequently, it's about once every two years). Most accidents are not really mentioned because they're level-crossing (some truck barreled through the level crossing on low-speed regional tracks, got stuck and the train smashed into it at 100~150km/h). The result is usually that the truck or car gets annihilated and the train is due for repairs. A more interesting incident type is the derailment (especially high-speed), and while that has happened several times the record of the TGV on these has been stellar: it was hinted at in the article, a TGV behaves very much like a solid object, it's a single coherent structure and the cars are very tightly bonded together (that's a major difference between TGV and ICE). As a result a TGV is extremely rigid, and in all derailments so far the derailment was partial (a bogie to a few cars) and the rigidity of the trainset is credited with keeping the train as a whole on the tracks even though some cars were not in contact. FWIW, TGV has the (dubious) award of highest-speed derailment from 1993: a trainset hit an unsupported rail section (a sinkhole had opened under a track after days of heavy rains resulting in a hole 7 meters long by 4 wide and 1.5m high) at 294km/h (185mph). 4 cars and the rear power unit derailed (a TGV trainset is 2 power units and 8 to 10 cars, this was a "TGV Réseau" trainset so 2/8, meaning half the train was off the rails), the train remained upright and managed to stop (over 2.3km). One passenger injury and one passenger was treated for shock.
  - mtts 15y ago
    Yeah, I meant accidents involving derailment. Sorry if I was unclear. These happen quite frequently with ICE trains.
- 15y ago

dpearson 15y ago

Track has been an issue in the US, as has losing track of trains and having collisions. The vast majority of fatalities are exactly what these laws won't help with: people swerving the gates, or walking on the tracks.

jrockway 15y ago
Or a boat crashing into a rail bridge pier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Big_Bayou_Canot_train_wreck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Big_Bayou_Canot_train_wrec... (Honestly, I feel like this is one of those "cannot be avoided" situations.)
billpaetzke 15y ago
Or parking your car on the tracks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Glendale_train_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Glendale_train_crash

cdavid 15y ago

There is a link in the article about TGV accidents (although to be fair, it is a website about TGV, so maybe biased toward TGV safety, I dunno). It should be noted though that the French railway system is pretty good from a quality POV, if only because it is used so much (traveling within France by plane rarely makes sense time-wise, and buses are rarely used). The situation may not apply to the US, although it would certainly remain a safe transportation. But I think it is a bit disingenuous not to mention critical factors like low-cost flight companies, huge facilities in the vicinity of airports and big net of inter-states buses. None of that is really true in France (there are low cost flight companies, but they go to airports which make it a non-starter for business).

mtts 15y ago

Dunno about the UK, but in the Netherlands we get news about major train accidents in surrounding countries and I don't think I've ever (well, maybe once or twice) read about a TGV accident. ICE (German high speed rail) accidents, on the other hand, happen at least once every couple of years. Which I always find ironic because French sloppiness is as proverbial over here as German precision.

masklinn 15y ago
> I don't think I've ever (well, maybe once or twice) read about a TGV accident. There are accidents pretty regularly (thought not frequently, it's about once every two years). Most accidents are not really mentioned because they're level-crossing (some truck barreled through the level crossing on low-speed regional tracks, got stuck and the train smashed into it at 100~150km/h). The result is usually that the truck or car gets annihilated and the train is due for repairs. A more interesting incident type is the derailment (especially high-speed), and while that has happened several times the record of the TGV on these has been stellar: it was hinted at in the article, a TGV behaves very much like a solid object, it's a single coherent structure and the cars are very tightly bonded together (that's a major difference between TGV and ICE). As a result a TGV is extremely rigid, and in all derailments so far the derailment was partial (a bogie to a few cars) and the rigidity of the trainset is credited with keeping the train as a whole on the tracks even though some cars were not in contact. FWIW, TGV has the (dubious) award of highest-speed derailment from 1993: a trainset hit an unsupported rail section (a sinkhole had opened under a track after days of heavy rains resulting in a hole 7 meters long by 4 wide and 1.5m high) at 294km/h (185mph). 4 cars and the rear power unit derailed (a TGV trainset is 2 power units and 8 to 10 cars, this was a "TGV Réseau" trainset so 2/8, meaning half the train was off the rails), the train remained upright and managed to stop (over 2.3km). One passenger injury and one passenger was treated for shock.
- mtts 15y ago
  Yeah, I meant accidents involving derailment. Sorry if I was unclear. These happen quite frequently with ICE trains.
15y ago