Modane train crash of 1917, train derailment in Modane, France, on Dec. 12, 1917, that killed more than 500 French soldiers. The French train was traveling from Turin, Italy, to Lyon, France, through a stretch of the Alps in southeastern France.
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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.
Balasore, Odisha — Mohammad Afzal survived one of the worst train accidents in India's history, but remained in a state of high anxiety, unable to locate his friend who was in the same coach.
All train crashes are tragic, but the Malbone Street Wreck is commonly considered the worst train crash in American history. On November 1, 1918, a packed Brighton Beach-bound train was speeding through a tunnel under Brooklyn's Malbone Street.
Railroad deaths totaled 954 in 2022, an 11% increase from the 2021 revised total of 859 and the highest since 2007. Nonfatal injuries totaled 6,252, a 6% increase from the 2021 revised total of 5,882.
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.
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.
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.
HOW SAFE ARE TRAINS? Trains are statistically much safer than driving. In 2020, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics recorded 40,867 total deaths from travel, including in planes, in cars on highways and on trains.
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 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami train wreck is the deadliest recorded train disaster in history, claiming the lives of at least 1,700 people. The incident was the result of a devastating tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which caused severe destruction to railway infrastructure.
CSX #8888, an SD40-2, ran away under power without a crew after the engineer incorrectly set the locomotive's dynamic brake and was unable to get back into the locomotive after it began moving.
On 28 February 1975 a southbound Northern City Line train crashed into the tunnel end beyond the platform at Moorgate station. Forty-three people were killed in what was the greatest loss of life on the Underground in peacetime.