Abstract: A recent railroad accident in Cumbria resulted in one of the few UK railroad accident fatalities in the last 5 years. This article describes some of the factors that caused the accident, and provides some perspective on railroad accidents compared with highway accidents. The Cumbria accident occurred in February 2007 when a high speed train derailed and slid down an embankment. The accident occurred at a crossover where a stretcher bar had been removed and not replaced. A scheduled track inspection that would have discovered the error had not been carried out as planned the day before the accident. The well-designed railroad cars helped protect most of the passengers from serious injuries. Although one passenger died in the Cumbria accident, the odds of a railroad passenger being injured in a train crash are slightly better than the chances of being struck by lightning. On an average day in the UK, 8 people are killed in road accidents, compared with only 10 railroad fatalities in 5 years. These statistics suggest that although railroad accidents receive significant publicity, railroad travel still is comparatively safe.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
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