A total of 63 main-track derailments (Table 4a & Table 4b) were reported in 2016, an 18% decrease from the 2015 total of 77 and a 28% decrease from the five-year average of 88 (Figure 6).
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While fatalities from train derailments are rare, derailments themselves are actually quite common. From 1990, the first year the BTS began tracking derailments and injuries on a yearly basis, to 2022, there have been 55,741 accidents in which a train derailed. That's an average of 1,689 derailments per year.
Rail accidents in the UK are extremely rare and our tracks are widely considered to be among the safest in Europe. Travelling by mainline rail is by far the safest mode of transport in the UK.
Despite fewer miles being traveled, the rate of derailments has increased in five of the last seven years. The derailment rate among the seven Class I railroads is also higher than it was a decade ago.
Worst accidentsThe worst accident was the Quintinshill rail disaster in Scotland in 1915 with 226 dead and 246 injured. Second worst, and the worst in England, was the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash, which killed 112 people and injured 340.
The recent Ohio train derailment, in which carriages from a 150-car freight liner carrying toxic chemicals crashed off the tracks in the town of East Palestine, is just one of more than a dozen rail accidents reported to have already taken place in the US since the start of 2023.
The 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck is the largest single rail disaster in world history by death toll, with 1,700 fatalities or more. It occurred when a crowded passenger train (No 50, Matara Express) was destroyed on a coastal railway in Sri Lanka by a tsunami that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
There are about three train derailments per day. They usually aren't disasters The U.S. saw more than one thousand train derailments last year, but industry leaders say traveling by rail remains one of the safest methods of transportation.
Track Defects are the Most Common CauseTrack defects emerged as the leading cause of train derailments. The significance of continuous infrastructure maintenance and inspections cannot be overstated.
There were eight non-workforce fatalities (passenger or public) in the year April 2022 to March 2023: three occurred in mainline stations and two at the platform-train interface; two passenger fatalities at stations on the London Underground; and one fatality from a collision between a member of the public and a tram.
Compared to other popular forms of travel, such as cars, ships, buses, and planes, trains are one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States.
1650. England – Whickham, County Durham. Two boys die when they are run over by a wagon on a wooden coal train way. While such tramway accidents are not generally listed as rail accidents (note the lack of accidents listed for the next 163 years) this is sometimes cited as the earliest-known railway accident.
The Great Train Wreck of 1918. On July 9, 1918, two passenger trains collided head-on in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, it remains the worst railroad accident in United States history.