The 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck is the deadliest recorded train disaster in history, claiming the lives of at least 1,700 people.
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In 1981, Bihar, India witnessed the deadliest train crash in the nation's history when a train derailed and plunged into the Bagmati River while crossing a bridge, resulting in the loss of 800 lives.
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.
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.
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.
William Huskisson (born March 11, 1770) was a statesman, financier and MP but he will always be remembered as the first widely-reported person in history to be fatally injured in a railway accident.
Within weeks, two trains were derailed and their payroll cars robbed. In 1868, an Adams Express car was attacked again at Seymour. This time the expressman was tossed out the door before the safes were cleared of over $40,000. Train robberies became frequent in the 1870s and peaked in the 1890s.
In 2022, there were more than 1,000 train derailments in the U.S. There were at least 1,164 train derailments across the country last year, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration. That means the country is averaging roughly three derailments per day.
Rail is the safest form of travel in Britain. For every million journeys made on the railway, only 16 crimes are recorded. The chances of you becoming a victim of crime while using the railway are extremely low. But if you need to, you can contact British Transport Police (BTP) by calling sending a text to 61016.
Inclement weather is not something you should worry about when looking at a train schedule. Unlike planes that cannot takeoff in some instances, a train will run in bad weather. The biggest danger to trains are downed trees and power lines from a storm that would block the tracks.
Salisbury 31 October – United Kingdom – 2021 Salisbury rail crash: Two trains collided in Fisherton Tunnel, 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Salisbury railway station, after one of them failed to stop at a red signal.
A derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, an operational error (such as excessive speed through a curve), the mechanical failure of tracks (such as broken rails), or the mechanical failure of the wheels, among other causes.
USA Today analyzed 10 years of federal rail incident reports and found over 5,000 incidents of hazardous materials spilling or leaking from trains that were either in transit or sitting in rail yards. In 2022, rail companies reported over 330 spills or leaks of hazardous materials – of which only six caused an injury.