* {{flagicon|United States}} [[March 4]] [[1853]] – [[Mount Union, Pennsylvania]], [[United States]]: A [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[March 4]] [[1853]] – [[Mount Union, Pennsylvania]], [[United States]]: A [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[April 16]] [[1853]] – [[Cheat River, West Virginia]], [[United States]]: Two [[Baltimore & Ohio]] passenger cars tumble down a hundred foot ravine above the Cheat River in West Virginia, west of Cumberland, Maryland, after they are derailed by a loose rail.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[April 16]] [[1853]] – [[Cheat River, West Virginia]], [[United States]]: Two [[Baltimore & Ohio]] passenger cars tumble down a hundred foot ravine above the Cheat River in West Virginia, west of Cumberland, Maryland, after they are derailed by a loose rail.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[April 23]] [[1853]] – Engineer of [[Camden & Amboy]]'s 2 p.m. train out of [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] misses stop signals and runs his train off of an open drawspan at [[Rancocas Creek]]. Fortunately, there are no fatalities.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[April 25]] [[1853]] – [[Chicago, Illinois]], [[United States]]: An eastbound [[Michigan Central Railroad]] express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a [[Michigan Southern Railroad]] emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[April 25]] [[1853]] – [[Chicago, Illinois]], [[United States]]: An eastbound [[Michigan Central Railroad]] express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a [[Michigan Southern Railroad]] emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[May 6]] [[1853]] – [[Norwalk, Connecticut]], [[United States]]: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a [[New Haven Railroad]] engineer neglects to check for open [[drawbridge]] signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely wounded.
* {{flagicon|United States}} [[May 6]] [[1853]] – [[Norwalk, Connecticut]], [[United States]]: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a [[New Haven Railroad]] engineer neglects to check for open [[drawbridge]] signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely wounded.
December1830 – Maryland, United States: On the Baltimore & Ohio the driver of a crowded horse-drawn coach falls from his seat and is killed beneath the wheels, the first fatal accident on a railroad in the US.
November 111833 – Hightstown, New Jersey, United States: Carriages of a Camden & Amboy train derail at 25 miles per hour in the New Jersey meadows between Spotswood and Hightstown when an axle breaks on a car due to an overheated journal. One car overturns, killing two and injuring fifteen. Among the survivors is Cornelius Vanderbilt who will later head the New York Central Railroad. He suffers two cracked ribs and a punctured lung, and spends a month recovering from the injuries. Uninjured in the coach ahead is former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, who continues on to the Nation's Capital the next day.
August 111837 – Suffolk, Virginia, United States: First head-on collision to result in passenger fatalities occurs on the Portsmouth & Roanoke Railroad near Suffolk when an eastbound lumber train coming down a grade at speed rounds a sharp curve and smacks the morning passenger train from Portsmouth, Virginia. First three of thirteen stagecoach-style cars are smashed, killing three daughters of the prominent Ely family and injuring dozens of others of the 200 on board. They were returning from a steamboat cruise when the accident happened. An engraving depicting the moment of impact is published in Howland's "Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents" in 1840.
1840s
December 241841 – Sonning cutting, England: Eight passengers killed and seventeen injured when a Paddington to Bristol train ran into a landslide caused by heavy rain. The extent of the casualties in this accident called into question the practice of mixing passenger and freight wagons in fast trains.
May 8, 1842 – MeudonFrance: During the inauguration ceremonies of the Paris to Saint-Germain railroad, a returning train caught fire at Meudon. 55 passengers were killed trapped in the carriages, including the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville. This led to the abandonment of the obnoxious practice of locking passengers in their carriages in France.
1850s
January 61853 – Andover, Massachusetts, United States: The Boston & Maine noon express, traveling from Boston to Lawrence, Massachusetts, derails at forty miles an hour when an axle breaks at Andover, and the only coach goes down an embankment and breaks in two. Only one is killed, the twelve-year-old son of President-elect Franklin Pierce, but it is initially reported that General Pierce is also a fatality. He was on board but is only badly bruised. The baggage car and the locomotive remain on the track.
March 41853 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
April 251853 – Chicago, Illinois, United States: An eastbound Michigan Central Railroad express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a Michigan Southern Railroad emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
May 61853 – Norwalk, Connecticut, United States: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a New Haven Railroad engineer neglects to check for open drawbridge signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely wounded.
August 121853 – Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States: Thirteen passengers are killed and fifty injured in a head-on collision on the main line of the Boston & Worcester between a seven-car excursion train with 475 on board, bound for Narragansett Bay via Providence, and a two-car train bound from Providence to Worcester. They collide at the Valley Falls station, near Pawtucket. Believed to be the earliest wreck photographed, with the daguerreotype taken by a Mr. L. Wright of Pawtucket forming the basis for an engraving a fortnight later in the New York Illustrated News.
May 111858 – Utica, New York, United States: Two New York Central trains, a westbound freight and the eastbound Cincinnati Express, pass on a forty-foot wood trestle over Sauquoit Creek, three miles from Utica. It collapses under their weight, utterly destroying the passenger consist, killing nine and injuring 55.
June 281859 – Mishawaka, IndianaUnited States: Eastbound Lake Shore and Michigan Southern express breaks through rain-weakened Springbrook bridge late at night, with locomotive and two day coaches smashing into the mudbank thirty feet below. Following sleeper is not destroyed, but 41 die in the wreck.
December 181867 – Angola, New York, United States: The Angola Horror - The Buffalo-bound New York Express of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern derails its last coach, due to poor track maintenance, and it plunges forty feet off a truss bridge into Big Sister Creek just after departing Angola. The next car is also pulled from the track and rolls down the far embankment. Stoves set both coaches afire and fifty are killed - three manage to crawl from the wreckage. Forty more are injured. The train actually continues for some distance before the crew realizes an accident has happened.
August 261871 – Revere, Massachusetts, United States: A series of dispatching errors allow the Portland Express to collide with the rear of a stalled local train at Revere on the Eastern Railroad, telescoping the rear cars of the stopped consist. Coal-oil lamps ignite the wreckage and 29 die while 57 are injured. Several prominent Boston citizens are killed bringing much national publicity to the accident.
September 101874 – Norwich (Norfolk), United Kingdom: 25 people were killed when a communication error caused a mail train and an express passenger train to meet in a head-on collision on a single-line section. The accident led directly to the introduction of automatic control systems to manage traffic on single-track railways.
January 141878 – Tariffville, Connecticut, United States: A double-headed ten-car Connecticut Western Railroad special train of the faithful, returning from a revival held in Hartford, crosses the Tariffville Bridge over the Farmington River near midnight, and the structure collapses. Both locomotives and the first four cars plunge into the ice-covered river, killing seventeen and injuring 43.
July 61881 – Boone, Iowa, United States: A Chicago & Northwestern locomotive, No. 12, running light, runs tender-first, westbound over the line out of Boone to check the tracks during a heavy summer rainstorm in the Des Moines River Valley and plunges into Honey Creek as the weakened bridge collapses. Spunky, Irish-born, seventeen-year-old Kate Shelley, who lives close by the accident site, realizes that the late night eastbound express coming from Moingana, a mile to the west, has to be flagged down, lest it pile into gap at Honey Creek. To reach the station, she must cross the long 184-foot-high trestle over the Des Moines River in the storm. Arriving, exhausted, at the depot, she tells what she has seen, and the express train is halted. She then accompanies the rescue train to the failed bridge and helps locate the surviving engine crew, both of whom have survived the 25 foot dive into the flood and who have found refuge above the waters on tree limbs. For her part in keeping a small accident from becoming much worse, Kate Shelley becomes a national folk heroine. The Des Moines River trestle is named in her honor.
January 41887 – Republic, Ohio, United States: Just before 2 a.m., a westbound Baltimore & Ohio passenger express train hits a stalled eastbound freight which was supposed to have taken a siding for it to pass, on a bitterly cold night, one half mile west of Republic. Forward cars of the express telescope and then burn completely. Last two sleepers are spared. Exact number killed is not known but at least nine victims who perish in the fire are counted.
February 51887 – Hartford, Vermont, United States; Worst rail accident in Vermont history when the Central VermontMontreal Express goes off the White River bridge at White River Junction at 2 a.m. on a bitter winter night; 38 are killed and 40 injured.
August 10-111887 – Chatsworth, Illinois, United States: Fifteen car train of fully-occupied Pullman sleepers and coaches on the Toledo, Peoria and Western bound for Niagara Falls, comes to a wooden trestle over a shallow "run" just before midnight; the engineer sees that it is on fire too late to stop the double-headed train from crossing the weakened structure and the consist with over 600 on board crashes to a stop as the lead engine collapses it. The cars in the front half telescope into one another and some 84 are killed with injuries estimated at 279. This accident inspires morbid ballad "The Chatsworth Wreck" that includes the verse, "the dead and dying mingled with the broken beams and bars; an awful human carnage, a dreadful wreck of cars."
August 171887 – Washington, D.C., United States: Baltimore & OhioCincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Express enters the city from Maryland, out of control. At sixty miles an hour it derails on curve at Terracotta, demolishing several buildings as well as the train set. The engineer had been trying to make up time when he discovered that his brakes had failed. The engineer is killed and many passengers injured.
October 101888 – Mud Run, Pennsylvania, United States: Following a mass meeting held by the Total Abstinence Union in the Pennsylvania mountains at Hazelton, in which eight special temperance trains are operated from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by the Lehigh Valley Railroad carrying some 5,000 conventioneers, the consists are directed to keep a ten-minute interval between them upon return. At about 8 p.m., the sixth train with 500 on board stops near Mud Run along the banks of the Lehigh River and shortly thereafter the following section plows into it, telescoping the last car of the stopped train halfway through the coach ahead, killing 64 of the 200 in these two wooden cars outright. Another 100 are injured. Newspaper accounts suggest that temperance pledges were forgotten by some of the victims after they returned to the train.
April 19, 1891 – Kipton, Ohio, United States: A passenger train and a freight train collide just east of the Kipton depot, 8 dead. This accident was attributed to one of the engineers' watches having stopped and being four minutes behind, and led to the adoption of quality control standards for railroad-grade watches in the United States.
December 4, 1891 – East Thompson, Connecticut, United States: Four trains collide on the New York and New England Railroad. Two freight trains, No. 212 and the Southbridge local, collide due to sloppy dispatching, jack-knifing several cars. The Long Island & Eastern States Express passenger train then hits the wreckage at 50 miles per hour, killing the engineer and fireman. Shortly thereafter, despite an attempt to flag it down, the Norwich Steamboat Express also piles into the rear of the Eastern States Express, setting the last sleeper on fire as well as the locomotive cab although both engine crew survive. In all, only two deaths are confirmed although the body of one passenger is never found and presumed dead.
Easter Monday, April 61896 – Llanberis, Wales: On the opening day of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, locomotive No. 1 "L.A.D.A.S." ran away and derailed before plummetting down a steep slope where it was destroyed. The driver and fireman jumped clear and the carriages were stopped by the guard. One passenger jumped off the moving train and fell beneath the wheels. He later died from his injuries. The line then closed for over a year before re-opening on 19th April 1897.
September 15,1896: The Crash at Crush - Showman William George Crush convinces officials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (the M-K-T, known as "the Katy"), to let him stage a colossal train wreck for a crowd that will ride to the site near the town of West, Texas, producing much passenger revenue for the company. A one-day town is thrown up and named Crush, boasting a 2,100 foot platform and tank cars supplying 100 faucets. Two six-car trains of obsolete rolling stock, pulled by dolled-up locomotives are let loose at each other over a one-mile course with spectacular result. When the wrecked engines' boilers explode, flying shrapnel kills at least three of the 30,000 spectators and injures many more. And a good time was had by all.
1900s
April 301900 – Vaughan, Mississippi, United States: Illinois Central passenger train No. 1, the Cannonball, crashes into rear cars of freight train No. 83 which is fouling the main line out of a siding at 3:52 a.m. on the Water Valley District of the Mississippi Division. Engineer of 2-6-0 Mogul No. 382, John Luther Jones, the only fatality, is found to be solely at fault by the ensuing investigation for having disregarded safety warnings behind the stalled train. The accident spawns the vastly popular "Ballad of Casey Jones" by roundhouse worker and friend of the deceased, Wallace Saunders, and the root theme for a Grateful Dead song titled "Casey Jones".
August 101903 – Paris Metro train fire, France: electric fire at the Paris Métro Couronnes station, 84 killed. This led to the design of low-voltage control circuit for electric multiple-unit cars and better lighting in the Métro stations.
The aftermath of the Wreck of the Old 97.September 27, 1903 – Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: Southbound Southern Railwaypassenger train No. 97, en route from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina, derails on Stillhouse Trestle near Danville; 11 people are killed including the engine crew and a number of Railway Post Office clerks in the mail car right behind the engine. The 1920s recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" by composer Vernon Dalhart is sometimes cited as the American recording industry's first million-seller.
September 241904 – Morristown, Tennessee, United States: Two Southern Railway passenger trains, the Carolina Special and Local train No. 15, collide head-on near New Market, Tennessee near Lost Creek when the crew of the local, a three-car consist, fails to take the siding to allow the Carolina Special to pass. The impact knocks the boilers off of both locomotives and the engine on the local is catapulted onto the first three wooden coaches of the Special. The following four steel Pullmans of the Special ram the wooden wreckage and some 113 of the 210 on board are killed. None of the 140 on board the local die, however. The reason that the crew of the local failed to follow orders for the meet is never determined as they are killed.
September 151907, Canaan, New Hampshire, United States: Quebec to Boston wreck; 25 people killed, with as many seriously injured. The southbound Quebec express, heavily loaded with passengers returning from the Sherbrooke Fair, collided head-on with a northbound Boston & Maine Railroad freight train. The accident, 4 miles north of Canaan Station, was "due to a mistake in train dispatcher's orders."
July 301913 – Tyrone, Pennsylvania, United States: Two Pennsylvania Railroad trains collide in front of the station at Tyrone when the engineer of Chicago Mail train No. 13 runs through a stop signal, and his locomotive crushes the rear coach of train No. 15, the Pittsburgh Express. The first postal car of the moving train is thrown across the track into the front of the depot. The engineer is killed and 163 passengers are injured. Collision occurred at 2:38 PM.
May 221915 – In the Quintinshill rail crash, four trains including a troop train collide causing 227 fatalities and injuring 246 people at Quintinshill, Gretna Green, Scotland; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.
Thanksgiving, 1928 – Montezuma, Georgia, United States: a car stalled on the tracks kills a Columbus, Georgia, woman who, after taking her young niece to safety, returns to help her grandmother and grandfather when the train hits the car, killing all three.
December 221939 – Genthin, Germany: collision when train D180 drove into previous delayed and overcrowded train D10 from Berlin to Cologne. 278 killed, 453 injured. One of the worst train accidents in Germany.
1940s
April 191940 – Little Falls, New York, United States: The westbound New York CentralLake Shore Limited, running fifteen minutes late in rainy conditions, fails to reduce speed to 45 miles per hour at Gulf Curve near Little Falls, sharpest on the NYC System, and at 59 mph the locomotive derails, crosses two tracks and strikes a rock wall whereupon it explodes and nine cars pile up behind it. At least 30 known dead, including the engineer, and 100 injured in the noontime accident.
November 41940 – Norton Fitzwarren train disaster, England: Great Western Railway train driver misreads the signals on a four-track line that merges to two, and runs his train off the end of the track. Coaches telescope, killing 27 and injuring 75. Although driver error is primary cause, an inadequate signal plant is a contributing factor. Track plan was not visible under wartime black-out conditions.
December 271942 – Almonte, Ontario, Canada: 36 people are killed and over 200 injured when a passenger train running late was struck from behind by a troop train.
July 61944 – Troop train crash near Jellico, Tennessee, United States: Passenger train derails due to excessive speed on defective track. 35 killed, 99 injured; all soldiers in U.S. Army en route to deployment.
March 271953 – Conneaut, Ohio, United States: Four New York Central trains tangle near Conneaut on the four-track mainline on the night of March 27. As westbound freight no. 1736 passes eastbound freight no. 1871, the flagman in the caboose of no. 1736 notices sparks coming from the running gear of a car on no. 1871. As he relays what he has seen, the westbound Mohawk begins to overtake and pass no. 1736. At 76 miles per hour the passenger train suddenly swerves and side strikes the freight train, derailing both consists and scattering debris across all four tracks. Moments later, the Southwestern Limited smashes into the wreckage at 70 miles per hour. Eight cars of both passenger trainsets are demolished, the first two from the Southwestern and the first six of the Mohawk. Nine more cars from the Southwestern also derail. Twenty-one passengers die. Cause is found to be an improperly secured gondola load - a section of thirteen-inch pipe fell from the car onto the adjacent track and it was this that the Mohawk struck.
April 271953 – Red Desert, Wyoming, United States: Union Pacific Railroad train No. 4005 derails at 50 mph when a section gang opens a switch directly in front of the speeding train. The locomotive, tender, and first 18 cars derail, and the engineer and firemen are killed instantly; the front brakemen, however, survives.
September 51956 – near Robinson, New Mexico, United States: Two Santa Fe express passenger trains (No. 8, the Fast Mail Express and No. 19, the Chief) collide when a railroad worker prematurely throws a switch directly in front of the Chief, which had been traveling at some 63 mph. 20 railroad employees, mostly dining car personnel, are killed. [2]
March 151957 – near Kuurila, Finland: Steam-hauled overnight passenger train collides head-on with DMU express train. 26 were killed and 60 injured in the nation's worst peace-time train crash.
September 291957 – An express train crashes into an oil train at Montgomery, West Pakistan. 250 killed.
December 61957 – Lewisham train crash, England: A steam train passes a red signal in the fog and ploughs into the back of an electric train. The crash also destroyed a support column of a railway bridge, causing parts of the bridge to collapse onto the wreck, 90 people are killed.
September 151958 – Newark Bay, New Jersey, United States: Central Railroad of New Jersey morning commuter train blows through stop signals, derails at 42 miles per hour when it hits the automatic derailers, slides 500 feet through the span and out the open drawspan. Both diesels and first two coaches plunge into Newark Bay and sink immediately, 48 drown. A third coach hangs precariously out the drawbridge for two hours, snagged by its rear truck, before it, too, topples into the water. Last two cars remained on the bridge. As the whole operating crew was killed, no absolute determination for the accident was reached, but a medical emergency in the cab was theorized.
May 31962 – Tokyo, Japan: three-train collision at Mikawashima Station, 160 killed.
1963 – Geurie crossing loop collision: A train pulled by a 265-tonne Beyer-Garrett 6003 locomotive in loop was standing foul of main line, causing collision with NSWGR C38 class No.3817. Both locos were written off. No track circuiting.
July 61967 – Langenweddingen, East Germany near Magdeburg: ca. 140 killed, mainly children. Train collides with lorry carrying 15,000 litres of light petrol.
December 31978Southern Railway train no. 2, the Southern Crescent enters curve at excess speed, all of the consist but the lead engine and last car derail and slide down ravine at Shipman, Virginia; six die, including Gov. Jimmy Carter's former chef, Louis Price, killed in the galley. Sixty others injured, most trapped in the wreckage. Amtrak will assume control of the train from the Southern Railway on February 11979.
August 11980 – Buttevant, County Cork, Ireland: A train crashes into a siding at 70mph on the main Dublin - Cork line resulting in 18 deaths and 62 injured. This remains Ireland's worst transportation disaster.
September 191986 – Colwich rail crash, Rugeley, Staffordshire, England: High speed collision when one train fails to stop in time at a red signal, and obstructs a junction. Despite two locomotives being totally destroyed, the only death was one of the drivers.
January 41987 – Chase, Maryland, United States: Amtrak train 94, the Colonial, collides with a set Conrail freight locomotives that had missed a stop signal and was fouling the Northeast Corridor mainline at Gunpow Interlocking. The northbound passenger consist, bound from Washington, D.C. to Boston, derails, killing 14 passengers, the lounge car attendent, and the Amtrak engineer (Chase, Maryland rail wreck). The freight crew had been smoking marijuana and may have been watching a football play-off game on a pocket television, although this was never recovered and may have been thrown into the Gunpowder River. This notorious accident causes the railroad industry to tighten up drug use detection among operational personnel. It also made a pariah of Conrail engineer Ricky Gates.
May 41989 – Tepic, Mexico: 20-52 (depending on reports) are killed after train's brakes fail while descending a mountain side; the locomotive and three passenger cars flip on a curve and plunge down the ravine.
July 311991 – Lugoff, South Carolina, United States: Northbound Amtrak train, the Silver Star, derails the rear portion of its consist on the former Seaboard Air Line of the CSXT Railroad at 5 a.m. when a faulty switch moves as the train passes over it, directing an Amfleet coach into a hopper car standing on an industrial siding, and derailing the following equipment. Seven passengers die and 76 are injured, 18 seriously. An eighth passenger dies a few days later of injuries. The defective switch, which had been visually inspected the previous day, was found to have dropped a pin out of the spreader bar that held the gauge correct.
August 281991 – New York, New York: Five people are killed and more than 200 injured when southbound IRT No. 4 train, the Lexington local, derails going over a switch just north of Union Square. Two of the ten subway cars split open as they strike the steel tunnel support beams. The uninjured motorman, who passengers report had been handling the train erratically (he overshot two platforms during the run), flees the scene and is arrested five hours later near his Bronx home. He tests out as legally drunk and is charged with five counts of manslaughter. This accident, coupled with the AmtrakColonial wreck at Chase, Maryland on January 4, 1987, is instrumental in driving new federal rules for engineer certification and toxicology.
October, 1991 – Melun, France. A freight train overruns a closed signal, and fouls the path of the Nice-Paris night train. 16 people are killed. The accident was caused by a heart attack suffered by the freight train engineer. The deadman mechanism worked perfectly, but it was too late to stop the train in time. This led to the adoption of the KVBautomatic train control system which will detect improper train handling.
1992
March 121992 – A tram in Gothenburg, Sweden rolls backwards down a hill without control, derails near the bottom of it. There it glides sideways in a high speed into a tram stop where people are waiting. 13 killed, many injured.
June 301992 – near Superior, Wisconsin, United States: A Burlington Northern freight train transporting benzene encounters fatigued tracks and derails, plunging 3 tank cars off a trestle and into the Nemadji River. One of the cars ruptures, spilling 21,000 gallons of chemicals into the river, which are then carried into Lake Superior, forming a toxic cloud over Superior and Duluth, Minnesota. 40,000 area residents are evacuated; many suffer long-term health problems, and the damage to the surrounding environment is considerable.
August 121992 – just outside Newport News, Virginia, United States: Amtrak'sColonial passenger train, traveling at nearly 80 mph, enters a switch that had just moments before been opened by a pair of teenaged saboteurs. Though there are no fatalities, dozens are injured. 60 of the passengers subsequently sue Amtrak and CSX (who owned the right-of-way) for negligence, but the case is decided in favor of the railroad companies as it was determined that there was no way for the train crew to prevent the incident. The two teens are sentenced to federal prison terms for the crime.
March 171993 – near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States: An Amtrak passenger train traveling at 60 mph strikes a gasoline tanker truck that has stopped at a grade crossing, causing the tanker to explode. Miraculously, the engineer survives (one of only two to survive a collision with a gasoline tanker), though 6 people (including the truck driver) are killed and 12 injured.
September 221993 – Big Bayou Canot train disaster, Alabama, United States: A towboat with a barge lash-up, lost up a supposedly non-navigable estuary off of the Mobile River, collides with a piling and causes a bridge to shift out of alignment, creating a kink in the rails. Mere minutes later, Amtrak's eastbound Sunset Limited, just out of Mobile, Alabama, strikes the bad gauge, plunging the train into the water. 47 people are killed in Amtrak's deadliest accident.
December 21994 – Szajol, Hungary: InterCity train traveling at 65 mph derails and crashes into the railway station's building, killing 31 passengers and injuring many people.
October 281995 - Baku, Azerbaijan – World's deadliest metro disaster. In Baku, an underground metro train catches fire during Saturday evening rush hour. 337 people are killed.
February 16, 1996 – Silver Spring, Maryland, United States: The engineer of a MARC commuter train from Martinsburg, West Virginia, bound for Washington Union Station, either misses or ignores a stop signal and collides with outgoing Amtrak train no. 29, the westbound Capitol Limited. The push-pull train set is running with the engine at the rear, and the cab-control coach leading the MARC commuter erupts in flames on a snow-swept stretch of track at the Georgetown Junction interlocking in Silver Spring, Maryland. The crash left 11 people dead aboard the MARC train. Three die of injuries suffered in the impact, but the rest are killed by smoke and flames, exacerbated by a natural gas tank located at trackside to power the switching plant, which also ignites. The MARC engineer and 2 conductors were among the dead. [3]
April 21, 1996 – Passenger train operating in heavy fog derails at Jokela, Finland due to over-speeding through a slow-speed turnout. The locomotive driver and three passengers were killed, and 75 were injured.
March 61998 – Express passenger train derails at Jyväskylä, Finland, as a result of over-speeding while passing over a slow-speed turnout. The locomotive driver and nine passengers were killed, 94 were injured.
May 191998 – Robertson Derailment, Robertson, NSW, Australia. 2 drivers killed when a coal train derails on a road bridge that had partially collapsed after heavy rain.
March 151999 – Bourbonnais train accident, Bourbonnais, Illinois, United States: The southbound AmtrakCity of New Orleans, out of Chicago, Illinois, hits a semi truck loaded with steel rebar at a grade crossing and derails; the accident results in 11 fatalities and over 100 injuries. The fuel tanks of one F40PH locomotive are holed by the steel load and an ensuing fire sets one Superliner sleeper alight. The car attendent will later be given the Amtrak President's Award for heroic efforts to save her passengers from the fire.
August 21999 – Two express trains collide head-on in Gauhati, India. Over 285 people are killed.
April 52000 – Lillestrøm in Skedsmo, Norway: A freight train loses its brakes between Strømmen and Lillestrøm and collides with another freight train standing still at Lillestrøm Station. Two gas wagons loaded with propane catch fire and 2000 people are evacuated in fear of a BLEVE, but there are no casualties.
15 August, 2000 - 13 died near Kenya's fourth largest city, Kisumu after a passenger train rolled back due to failed brakes.
19 August, 2000 - at least 25 were burnt to death after a goods train carrying gas rolled back, smashed into stationary wagons and exploded.
February 282001 – Selby rail crash, Selby, North Yorkshire, England: A driver on England's M62 motorway falls asleep at the wheel; his car leaves the road just before a bridge over the tracks, driver escapes, but car is almost instantly hit by a passenger train as the car reaches the tracks, which then hits a coal train in the opposite direction. 10 people are killed, over 80 are injured.
April 122001 – Stewiacke, Nova Scotia (south of Truro): A teenager tampered with a switch several minutes before VIA Rail Canada's Ocean passed through the town. The resulting derailment destroyed several buildings and passenger rail cars. Many people were injured, several severely although there were no fatalities.
December 232001 – Rochester, New York, United States: An incorrect brake application on a CSX local train that had stopped to perform switching at Kodak Park causes the train to run away and derail five miles later, destroying homes and businesses in the area.
April 182002 – Crescent City, Florida, United States: Amtrak's northbound Auto Train No. PO52-18, derails on left-hand curve at 56 miles per hour near Crescent City, putting 21 of 40 cars on the ground. Of 413 passengers and 33 crew on board, four are fatalities, with 36 serious and 106 minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the accident was caused by a hot-weather "sun kink" misalignment of the track due to inadequate CSX maintenance-of-way, and stated that equipment and track damages totaled about $(US)8.3 million. Several Superliner cars go on their sides and have to be taken out of service.
May 252002 – Tenga, Mozambique: In an accident eerily reminiscent of Armagh 1889, passenger carriages, separated from a train also carrying freight, run away and smash into a cement train, killing 200.
July 292002 – Kensington, Maryland, United States: Eastbound Amtrak train PO30, the Capitol Limited, two P42 locomotives and thirteen cars, strikes a sun kink at 60 miles per hour on the former Baltimore & Ohio Metropolitan Subdivision of the CSXT Railroad at milepost 11.78 in Kensington at about 1:55 p.m., and eleven cars derail. Several go down an embankment and four Superliners overturn against trees. Of 164 passengers and thirteen crew, fourteen passengers and two crew are seriously injured, 71 passengers and eight crew with minor injuries. Damages were fixed in excess of $(US) 14.3 million, and the cause was determined to be improperly tamped ballast, improper slow order imposition, coupled with the 96 degree sunny weather which caused the misalignment. Slow orders on very hot days are imposed on passenger trains in the area following this accident. Several Superliners are totalled.
March 12003 – Chiayi, Taiwan: A brake system malfunction aboard a train on the Alishan Forest Railway caused the train to lose control and plummet into a valley. 17 were killed and 173 were injured.
August 32003, Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, The volunteer train driver, 31-year-old Kevin Crouch, died when his train hit a car on a level crossing. The car driver, a woman with a baby, had apparently ignored or failed to see the crossing's warning lights, and was later arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, but was found guilty only on a lesser charge of careless driving [6]. Some of the train passengers were treated for shock and minor injuries.
2004
February 182004 – Nishapur, Iran: A train derails and catches fire, exploding hours later. About 300 are killed.
March 112004 – Madrid train bombings, Spain: A series of coordinated terrorist bombings against the commuter train system, which killed 191 people and wounded 1,460.
September 102004 – Nosaby, Blekinge, Sweden. A heavy truck brakes too late, goes through the gates and stops on the track, and the driver leaves his cab. Two was killed and 47 injured in the crash.
January 62005 – Graniteville train disaster, South Carolina, United States: Still under investigation by the NTSB; preliminary findings are that a turnout is left lined for a siding when it should have been lined for the mainline, causing a through Norfolk Southern freight train to collide with a parked train. [7] – Nine killed, the engine crew, and nearby citizens who are caught in toxic gas cloud released from a damaged tank car.
January 122005 – Fort St. John, Manitoba (a suburb of Winnipeg), Canada: Five cars of a CN freight train derail; as one of the cars was carrying propane, the area is evacuated. The tank car remains upright and intact, so local residents are allowed to return fairly quickly.
January 262005 – Glendale train crash, California, United States: In what was originally thought to be a failed suicide attempt by an automobile driver, a southbound Metrolink double deck commuter train collides with a vehicle that had been driven onto the tracks and derails; the derailed train strikes the northbound Metrolink train on the other mainline track and a parked Union Pacific Railroad freight train on a siding. 11 people are killed, about 100 injured.
February 282005 – Kungsbacka, Sweden. A train carrying chlorine derails, because of too high speed. Reason: the brake system had a manual setting: "filled"/"empty", and was falsely set at "empty". This was inside a city, causing alarm. This main rail line was closed for two weeks while removing the chlorine and the rail cars. No one seriously injured.
May 102005 – Houston, Texas, United States: A METRORail train strikes and kills a pedestrian. This is the first fatality accident in the history of METRORail, but overall the 88th crash in the (at that time) 19 month history of the METRORail, which has earned the system nicknames such as "The Streetcar Named Disaster" and "Wham-Bam-Tram". (The 88th crash is the count per official news media reports. However, ActionAmerica.org, a METRORail opposition website, claims that the Houston Chronicle and other local media outlets have purposely failed to report crashes involving METRORail as a means of "conniving" Houstonians to support expansion of the system. ActionAmerica.org believes the total count through the fatal crash may have been higher.)
May 19, 2005 – Lampung, Indonesia: A fully loaded passenger train crashes into a parked freight train at a station. [9]
June 212005 – Revadim, Israel: A southbound passenger train collides with a coal delivery truck near Revadim, about 25 miles south of Tel Aviv; the train was bound for Beersheba when the accident occurred. At least seven people die in the accident and more than 200 are injured. (CBS)
July 102005Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, Kent. A 15" gauge steam train collides with a car on a level crossing, killing the volunteer driver of the train. None of the passengers in the train are seriously injured.
July 132005 – Ghotki rail crash, Ghotki, Pakistan: A chain reaction accident caused by one train missing a signal and colliding into another results in three trains crashed and over 150 people dead.
July 312005 – Shenyang, China: Northbound train K127 from Xi'an to Changchun passes a sabotaged railway signal and collides with a freight train, killing five of the passenger train's passengers. Officials state that some wiring was stolen from a nearby signal box causing the signal to malfunction. (Trains)
August 32005 – Wabamun, Alberta, Canada: 43 cars (nearly all of them tank cars) of a 140-car westbound Canadian National Railway (CN) train from Edmonton to Vancouver derail, sending nearly 700,000 litres of fuel oil into Wabamun Lake, and the small creeks feeding into lake Wabamun. Initially, local residents are evacuated as at least one of the derailed tank cars carried toluene, but that tank remains intact. Belatedly, residents are warned to stop using water from the lake and to wear protective gear while rescuing oil-coated wildlife because one of the ruptured tanks is later revealed to have contained pole oil, which is a carcinogen used to treat utility poles. No human injuries are reported, however statistics showed that only one in six birds survived, as well, many other muskrats, beavers, and small animals were covered too heavily in the oil to survive. The accident closed CN's mainline for 36 hours while crews clean up the spill, and angry cabin owners protested by "camping out" on the tracks, forcing all trains to come to a halt. The closure also impacted VIA Rail Canada's passenger trains, requiring passengers to be bussed around the accident scene. (Trainboard)(Reuters)(Canadian Government)(CBC News)
November 262005 – Seattle, Washington: The city's red and blue monorails sideswipe one another at a "pinch point" in the track layout near Seattle Center. None of the 84 passengers is injured.
December 262005 – Yamagata Prefecture, Japan: All 6 cars of an express train derail 180 miles north of Tokyo; 5 people are killed and more than 30 are injured. Strong winter winds are thought to be the cause. (AP)
January 292006 – A broken rail causes a derailment near Jhelum in the Punjab, killing 2 and injuring 29. Poor maintenance is being officially blamed, but sabotage is still suspected by some authorities. The government inquiry still continues.
February 162006 – Serres, Greece: An inter-city train strikes a truck at a grade crossing near Serres and derails. A passenger and the truck driver are killed, and twenty others on board the train are injured.
March 32006 – A CSX freight train strikes a tractor-trailer rig that had stalled at a grade crossing in Union City, Georgia, United States, literally cutting the trailer in half. The truck driver escapes serious injury by leaping from the cab seconds before the collision.
National Transportation Safety Board, 2003, [19]Derailment of Amtrak Auto Train PO52-18 on the CSXT Railroad near Crescent City, Florida, April 18, 2002. Railroad Accident Report NTSB/RAR 03-02. Wahington, DC.
Transport portal
September 15 1830 – England: William Huskisson becomes first passenger train death. Killed by Stephenson's Rocket at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
December 1830 – Maryland, United States: On the Baltimore & Ohio the driver of a crowded horse-drawn coach falls from his seat and is killed beneath the wheels, the first fatal accident on a railroad in the US.
May 8, 1842 – Meudon France: During the inauguration ceremonies of the Paris to Saint-Germain railroad, a returning train caught fire at Meudon. 55 passengers were killed trapped in the carriages, including the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville. This led to the abandonment of the obnoxious practice of locking passengers in their carriages in France.
March 12 1855 – Desjardins Canal Bridge train disaster, Ontario, Canada: Ninety passengers boarded a train from Toronto, Ontario en route to Hamilton, Ontario. As the train approached its destination, the bridge spanning the Desjardins Canal collapsed as the train derailed. 70 passengers died from trauma or drowning and exposure after being thrown into Cootes Paradise.
1902 – Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany: Serious buffer stop collision inspires development of Rawie range of energy-absorbing buffer stops.
April 20 1908 – Sunshine train disaster, Melbourne, Australia: Rear-end collision, kills 44 and injures around 400.
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1912 – A train ran into a still passenger train in Malmslätt causing 22 deaths and 12 injuries.
September 13, 1931 – Biatorbágy, Hungary: Szilveszter Matuska blows up the viaduct under the Budapest-Vienna express train, killing 22 passengers and injuring 17.
June 4 1943 – Hyde railway accident, New Zealand: Train derails at speed in a curved cutting, 21 killed, 47 injured.
January 16 1944 – Accident in the Torro tunnel in Leon province, Spain. Over 500 killed.
February 1944 – Train collision near Breifoss between Hol and Geilo, Norway, at the Bergensbanen line. 25 killed.
March 3 1944 – Balvano, Italy: Over 500 people who stole a ride on a freight train die of carbon monoxide poisoning when the train stalls in a tunnel.
October 22 1949 – Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland: The express train between Gdańsk and Warszawa derails. Over 200 killed.
December 24 1953 – Šakvice train disaster, Czechoslovakia: Express train whose crew fell asleep after several bottles of wine hits commuter train at a station, killing 106.
April 3 1955 – Guadalajara, Mexico: A train falls into a canyon. 300 killed.
March 15 1957 – near Kuurila, Finland: Steam-hauled overnight passenger train collides head-on with DMU express train. 26 were killed and 60 injured in the nation's worst peace-time train crash.
September 29 1957 – An express train crashes into an oil train at Montgomery, West Pakistan. 250 killed.
January 8 1962 – The Harmelen train disaster, the worst railway accident in the history of The Netherlands, occurs when one passenger train driver misses a warning signal in fog and passes a red signal to collide nearly head-on with another passenger train. 93 people died.
May 3 1962 – Tokyo, Japan: three-train collision at Mikawashima Station, 160 killed.
July 6 1967 – Langenweddingen, East Germany near Magdeburg: ca. 140 killed, mainly children. Train collides with lorry carrying 15,000 litres of light petrol.
February 1 1970 – Buenos Aires, Argentina: An express train crashes into a standing train. 236 killed.
August 30 1974 – Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia): An express train from Athens to Dortmund derails at Zagreb train station, due to excessive speed. 153 passengers killed.
1979 – 54 people are killed in the worst accident in Thai railway history when a commuter train collides with a cargo train at Taling Chan.
August 1 1980 – Buttevant, County Cork, Ireland: A train crashes into a siding at 70mph on the main Dublin - Cork line resulting in 18 deaths and 62 injured. This remains Ireland's worst transportation disaster.
June 6 1981 – Bihar train disaster, India: Hundreds are killed (300-800) when a train falls into a river.
June 4 1989 – Ufa train disaster, Russia: Hundreds are killed (400-1000) when two trains pass near a leaking natural gas line, which explodes.
March 28 1993 – Busan train disaster, Busan, South Korea: An express train derailed and 79 people were killed.
1993 - 114 perished in a Mombasa-bound passenger train which plunged into a river after floods washed away a bridge at Ngai Ndethya.
September 22 1994 – Damaged brakes make a train crash into a canyon in Tolunda, Angola. 300 killed.
October 28 1995 - Baku, Azerbaijan – World's deadliest metro disaster. In Baku, an underground metro train catches fire during Saturday evening rush hour. 337 people are killed.
November 11 2000 – Kaprun disaster, Austria: A funicular train catches fire in a tunnel, 155 die.
March 27, 2001 – Pécrot rail crash, Pécrot, Belgium: Two passenger trains collide on the same track, killing 8 and injuring 12.
February 20 2002 – Al Ayatt train disaster, Egypt: A train packed to double capacity catches fire, 373 die.
May 25 2002 – Tenga, Mozambique: In an accident eerily reminiscent of Armagh 1889, passenger carriages, separated from a train also carrying freight, run away and smash into a cement train, killing 200.
June 24 2002 – Igandu train disaster, Tanzania: Nearly 300 are killed when a passenger train rolls backwards into a goods train.
March 1 2003 – Chiayi, Taiwan: A brake system malfunction aboard a train on the Alishan Forest Railway caused the train to lose control and plummet into a valley. 17 were killed and 173 were injured.
February 18 2004 – Nishapur, Iran: A train derails and catches fire, exploding hours later. About 300 are killed.
April 22 2004 – Ryongchon disaster, North Korea: Over 50 are killed and more than 1000 injured when an explosion takes place.
December 26 2004 – "Queen of the Sea" train disaster, Telwatta, Sri Lanka: Approximately 1700 are killed in the world's worst rail disaster to date as a train is overwhelmed by a tsunami created by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
May 19, 2005 – Lampung, Indonesia: A fully loaded passenger train crashes into a parked freight train at a station. [9]
June 21 2005 – Revadim, Israel: A southbound passenger train collides with a coal delivery truck near Revadim, about 25 miles south of Tel Aviv; the train was bound for Beersheba when the accident occurred. At least seven people die in the accident and more than 200 are injured. (CBS)
July 31 2005 – Shenyang, China: Northbound train K127 from Xi'an to Changchun passes a sabotaged railway signal and collides with a freight train, killing five of the passenger train's passengers. Officials state that some wiring was stolen from a nearby signal box causing the signal to malfunction. (Trains)
August 1 2005 – Kilkis, northern Greece: A truck driver is killed after he ignored grade crossing warning signs and his truck is hit by an oncoming passenger train of the Hellenic Railways Organization. The train's crew are only slightly injured, and all of the train's passengers are uninjured and continue their journey by bus. (Kathimerini)
January 23 2006 – Bioče train disaster: A passenger train crashes into a ravine near Podgorica, Serbia and Montenegro killing 46 and injuring 198. (BBC News)