Aug 21 2006
How Many Trains Derail In A Week?
I am curious to see how many trains typically derail in a week or month after I noticed a lot of train derailments in the news. The largest today was in Egypt with 80 dead. Another one derailed in Spain with 8 dead. But then there was a train derailment in El Paso 7 days ago. Another one in Bulgaria that same day. There was one in Arkansas the day after. One day prior another train derailed . Three days prior to that another derailed in Florida. Interestingly, this article claims one derailment a month in Florida since January. Seems like a lot of derailments to this neophyte to train transportation. Curious.
Update: Reader Merlin provides the answer here, and it is a lot more than I ever suspected.
Ask and you shall receive
Data from Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Only updated thru 2001 but it gives you a sense of the magnitude
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/html/table_02_37.html
Yup but go back to the data again and look at 1980
That was the year that caused a lot of follow up tightening of inspection requirements and such.
Another good site with lots of statistics you can search
How many in your state etc
http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/
Over 1/2 of all derailments are in the railroad switching yards due to human error.
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