Monday, March 12, 2007

Derailed...

NEWS. TALK. SPORTS - 570news.com - Derailment cuts Via Rail service in Toronto-Montreal corridor until Tuesday

I wondered if it was just my imagination or....has there been a lot of train derailments in the past year. I did a search for derailment and found headlines like:
Monday's train derailment third this year.
Mudslides, derailment hamper CN rail traffic.
Fire from 15-car train derailment in Oneida nearly extinguished.
Sunday Train Derailment.
Metro-North to study derailment issue near GCT.
Train derailment causes spill.
Authorities in Pa. report freight train derailment.

and on and on and on...2336 results picked up.

Have trains always been this dangerous?

1 comment:

Red said...

Travelling by train in the UK is like taking your life in your hands. We had a derailment only a couple of weeks ago, and the train authorities had the nerve to say, "It's perfectly safe. You must remember that the last major train accident was back in 2003."

Four years ago. Now, I don't know about you, but a four-year spell between disasters involving what should be a safe mode of transport is not a long time. Concorde didn't have any accidents in its 27-year history. Qantas started operating in the 1920s and it still hasn't lost an airliner (and may that never happen). Now, that's a record to be proud of. Four years is well poxy.