Live from the Third Rail: Archive

May 21, 2004

It's Been a Bad Week for Trains

Another train collision, this one in Europe, reports Reuters.com. An Intercity train hit another train (this one empty) near a station in Amsterdam:

A Reuters journalist on the scene said the front carriage of one of the trains was resting on top of the locomotive of the other. Several ambulances and rescue helicopters had arrived at the crash site and emergency crews were still looking for any more passengers that may be trapped inside.

Post Author: amg | 4:52 PM | Link | TrackBacks

Comments

There was a derailment and collision in Italy a few days ago, with 30 injuries but no fatalities. From what I can tell several coaches of a passenger train derailed and sideswiped the locomotive of a freight train passing on the opposite track.

Posted by: Tim Hall at May 21, 2004 7:03 PM

There's a photo of the collision here.

http://www.liberation.fr/obj/106/IMAGE_T5_10524.jpg

Posted by: Tim Hall at May 24, 2004 4:33 PM

Tim,

Thanks for the link. That's insane, and quite frightening...

Posted by: Aaron G. at May 24, 2004 5:42 PM

BTW, that's the Amsterdam collision, not the Italian one.

The coach at 30deg on top of the locomotive which seems to have taken much of the force of the collision was from the empty train.

Another photo from a French newspaper site showed a view looking back along the commuter train. The first four coaches are derailed and are at various angles to each others. It's not clear from the photos whether the ends of the carbodies got crushed; it may be the injuries were caused by people being thrown about inside.

The fact the driver survived says something about the crashworthiness of the French style 'Z' front ends.

Posted by: Tim Hall at May 24, 2004 6:26 PM