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Archive 1

early comments

Some one needs to get a copy of the book "Red for Danger" and incorporate many other crashes mentioned therein.

Syd1435 04:24, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)


I'm adding a Washington DC metro subway one. Unknown if there is a seperate page for those. List of subway accidents does not exist.66.173.192.96 00:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

"stop train" vs. "stopped train"

Is "stop train" a term that is specific to European railroads? The grammar seems a little odd to me as a native English speaker. I read the entry as one train collided with another train that was not moving, the stationary train was a stopped train. Is that right? Thanks. (Note that I left a similar message on the user's talk page to ensure that the question is seen) slambo 20:03, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

You're referring to the 1976 Schiedam crash, yes? A "stoptrein" is a Dutch term for a train which stops at every station. I presume it was mistranslated into English - in the UK we'd call it a "local train". -- Arwel 20:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. slambo 20:23, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

- A local train is sometimes called a stopping train Tabletop 03:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC) - A local train is also called an all stops train Tabletop 03:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Nice TOC switch

The automatic TOC was looking rather ungainly. The new TOC summarizes the page quite nicely. The only thing that I might try to improve on it would be the color scheme, but I don't have a good palette handy. slambo 17:30, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

I just nicked the colour scheme from the toc at List of songs whose title includes geographical names, although I agree its not the nicest in the world! I've made a mockup at User:Thryduulf/rail accidents toc using the colour scheme from the info box to see how it looks. Feel free to play around with the colours on that page. Thryduulf 01:11, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Unless anyone objects in the next week, I will replace the current "list of songs grey" version of the TOC with the "custom grey/yellow" version at User:Thryduulf/rail accidents toc. Thryduulf 20:16, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

past/present tense

is there any reason why most of the article is in the present tense even though the crashes happened in the past? tommylommykins

Because it's standard practice on WP for timelines to describe events in the present tense. slambo 17:34, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Why? It doesn't feel right tommylommykins 13:29, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
I always thought the opposite, that writing timelines with the events in past tense didn't feel right to me. Since I'm the editor who updates this article and the rest of the rail transport timeline pages (Category:Rail transport timelines, Category:Anniversaries in rail transport and Portal:Trains/Anniversaries) the most, I write events in the style that seems the most natural to me, and edit listings to a consistent format and style. Other timelines on WP use this style too, such as Timeline of hacker history, Timeline of lighting technology, and many others listed on List of themed timelines, so it's not just consistency within rail transport timeline pages, but with as many timeline pages as possible. slambo 15:03, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
:-) tommylommykins

This page is getting long

On my most recent edit to this page today, I noticed that it said the article is now at 51kb long. I think it's time to split it, and suggest we split by century: List of rail accidents: 19th century, List of rail accidents: 20th century and leave the 21st century events here (we could make a List of rail accidents: 21st century page, but then what would be left here?). Thoughts? slambo 14:18, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and we'd leave the entire contents block on the article, just update where the links point to. slambo 14:19, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this page is getting to long. I think that the main page should contain one accident of each type plus accidents from which important lessons are learned. Other accidents, such as level crossing collisions which are otherwise all the same might go into a page for each (major) country, such as list of Russian rail accidents. Accidents is smaller countries might go in files for suitable time periods such as List of rail accidents 1901-1950.

Tabletop 07:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

So many rail accidents in 2005?

This is my first visit to the List of rail accidents page, and it strikes me how there seem to be so many accidents happening in 2005 compared to the rest. I know wikipedia is biased towards current events, so can understand why we have more on the 21st Century than the 19th Century. But we're 4 months from the year end, and it already has over double the amount of accidents compared to 2004, was 2004 so long ago? Although we may just be having a very bad year. - Hahnchen 01:57, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it's just that we're paying much more attention to the accidents that are occurring this year, and we're adding them here as they happen. That's part of the reason for the page split that I suggested in an earlier comment. A while ago there was an editor who added a bunch of accidents from Norway throughout history, and I'd like to see the same for other parts of the world as well. slambo 02:45, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
Well look at the kind of stuff added recently - "September 18, 2005 – Rillington, North Yorkshire, England: A 92 year old man dies when he drives his car into the path of a train at a level crossing.". If everything like this was added, the article will become endless. What next, subway suicides? Nfitz 22:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Yep, and the problem is what? It's not important enough because only one person died? Its a rail accident so unless there is a consensus that some kind of criteria (number of people dead/number of people injured/whatever?) needs to be met for it to be added to this list it falls under the scope of "rail accidents". chowells 22:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Inconsistency of Flag thumbnails in List

I've also noticed on my first viewing of this page, that there is an inconsistency in the small flag picture symbolising the country where the accident occurred.

Some show an English St. Georges Cross and some show the Union Jack. I say we should replace all the English/Scottish/Welsh flags here with the Union Jack. The railway in Britain is called British Rail and I think it would be more natural for the country flags to refer to Britain rather than the individual countries.

For example, I was looking for the Quintinshill rail crash on the list, the most deadly rail accident to occur in Britain. It took a slight while longer to find, because firstly I looked for the Union Jack, and then the St. Georges Cross, and then finally realised it was in Scotland. What do you think? - Hahnchen 02:12, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

When I added the flags, I used the flag for the country name that is listed in the dateline. I have no preference for United Kingdom versus the individual regions, so if someone wants to replace Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and whatever other subregion flags on this page with United Kingdom, then I say go for it. slambo 02:41, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
What about having both the Union Jack and Scottish flag for the Quintinshill crash? Tabletop 03:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking about this yesterday. There's a time inconsistency as well. We use the East Germany flag for Langenweddingen (1967), presumably because that is the country it was in at the time but the 1924 to 1972 Flag of the Government of Northern Ireland for Armagh (1889), long before NI existed as an entity. Using the UK flag is probably the best solution for all UK incidents. I don't _think_ there were any incidents that will end up on this page in what is now the Republic of Ireland before it was created. --Cavrdg 08:20, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer the United Kingdom over the separate country flags. But when one considers British Rail, they would not normally consider Northern Ireland because that has always been operated by Northern Ireland Railways, a separate entity. So maybe we should have the Union Jack for England, Scotland, Wales, and something else for NI. However, this may offend the Unionists in Ireland, so I'm not too sure. - Hahnchen 14:36, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
There are some options for what the something else could be at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#A_better_flag_icon_for_Northern_Ireland.3F but, as with most things in NI, there's no easy answer. --Cavrdg 15:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
The use of flags is rather illogical. It would be sensible to use the Union Jack for all accidents which happened in Ireland pre-1921. We're also using the Ugandan flag for the maneaters of Tsavo incident, even though that was about 70 years before Uganda existed and the Union Jack would probably be more appropriate. To nit-pick, we're also using the 50-star US flag for pre-1960 accidents, the Maple Leaf flag for pre-1965 Canadian accidents, and the current German flag for the 1939 Genthin accident when the swastika flag was current. :) -- Arwel 14:44, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
We are looking back at past events from our own perspective. Thus, for an accident that happened in present day Uganga, should have a Ugandan flag. Any accident that has happened in present day Uganda should have the Ugandan flag on. I say, we replace England, Scotland and Wales with United Kingdom. Thoughts? - Hahnchen 23:33, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

An anon changed a couple from UK to Wales and England. I've reverted and left a note on the anon's talk to join the discussion here. Slambo (Speak) 15:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Use both together Scotland / United Kingdom . --86.29.251.116 07:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Past and present tense; numbers.

I have noticed that some reports are written in the present tense and some in the past. Compare:

  • The train passes a red signal; the driver is killed.
  • The train passed a red signal; the driver was killed.

I think these should be changed so all entries are the same, but which?

Also, what is the correct way of writing numbers?

  • Seven dead and forty-three injured
  • 7 dead and 43 injured
  • Seven dead and 43 injured
  • Some other combination

I am sure newspapers etc., have a rule, is it numbers under 10 are written as words and all others as numbers, or something else?

-=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 16:58, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I try to stick with the present tense as that's what's used on other timeline pages throughout WP. When I have time, I will sometimes go through this list and "re-tense" sentences into present tense, but usually only update the listings around whatever I'm editing at the time. I haven't seen it mentioned in WP:MOS yet, but it seems to make more sense to me (see above). As for the numbers, I'll usually use digits for numbers greater than ten, and words for numbers between zero and ten. However, I will rarely mix words and digits myself, preferring digits. slambo 18:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

WP:FL

I just stumbled on this article and thought it's not far off being up to featured list status. Congatulaions to the editors. A few things it does still need though:

-- —Moondyne 03:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

So, to everyone else who participates here, what do we say? I'll try to work something up for a lead section, but what about the other points? We've got a brief discussion on the criteria for inclusion, and we probably need to take a closer look at this. Personally, I'm not listing every accident I hear about simply because they would overwhelm the list with incidents that do not involve any injury or property damage (just dropping one axle off the rail is not what I consider sufficient reason to add it to the list yet it happens every day on railroads around the world). My own informal gauge for an incident's importance and whether or not I list it here includes the amount of press coverage an accident receives, the amount of damage, the extent of any injuries and whether or not anyone was evacuated for the incident's cleanup. It is very subjective, but short of any formal criteria, it'll have to do. I have a strong suspicion that other editors use similar gauging strategies with incidents from around the world. This leads to the question, how do we state this in the lead section?
The third point above, about references, could easily get out of hand if we include every reference. For example, the References section on September 2005 in rail transport includes complete citations for each reference used in the news events there; but there number of entries here is much larger than there. I suspect that many of the earlier accident accounts came from collections of accident reports. Whatever is the case, it seems to me that if we used a reference for information in the list, we need to list the citation. I've been trying to do this for the incidents that I add to the list, but many others aren't. As a minimum, I think we need to get all of the current reference and footnote information into a consistent format and ensure that future additions follow the same format. Is anyone willing to tackle this part of the project?
slambo 16:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Historic flags

I think they should go. They will only confuse people who do not come from those countries. tommylommykins(sorry about the name)

I was tempted to revert, but I couldn't remember if there was any discussion on that part of the flag issue and didn't want to undo it without talking about it first. I would tend to agree; I'm more in favor of using a region's current flag, but I see the merit in using the most time-appropriate flag for a region. It seems similar to the discussion that we had a while ago on using the regional flags for portions of the UK rather than the current unified flag. slambo 16:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I see we're still on thw old flags... It's anly going to be a simple global replace job in a text editor, so I'm happy to change the flags back if nobody wants to argue. tommylommykins 17:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Sounds good. Slambo (Speak) 18:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, that failed... Lets try again. tommylommykins 19:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Done. Sorry about the mess. Some stupid mistakes there.

Chicago rail accident today (Dec 9, 2005)?

Since I didn't see any mention on the news sites of an accident occurring today in Chicago, I've reverted the edit that added such a mention. If there really was an accident today, we need more details and a reference. Thanks. Slambo (Speak) 19:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Missing Rail Accident

Yesterday, an emergency vehicle drove throught an open drawbridge in Jersey City, NJ. This reminded me of a similar accident occuring in Bayonne, NJ, in which a train drove through an open drawbridge killing 53, as I recall. I have no exact date, though and am having difficulty finding corroborative news articles. John07801 (Speak) 16:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Genthin desaster (22 Dec 1939)

The death/injured numbers are too high. In all my sources there are 186 killed and 106 injured people. By the way, on the same day(!) another heavy desaster occured in Germany. Near Markdorf (Bavaria), a frontal collision of a special passenger train with a freight train resulted in 101 killed and 28 injured people. (Source for instance: Schatten der Eisenbahngeschichte. Ein Vergleich britischer, US- und deutscher Bahnen. (by Hans Joachim Ritzau, first published in Pürgen in 1987).) (A translation of the title would be: Shadows of railroad history. A comparison of British, US and German railroads.) Best regards, --Thomas Goldammer 15:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly suggest reorganisation

Following from comments above, this page really seems to have got too long and is inconsistent in style. Brief summaries of major crashes of historical importance are cheek-by-jowl with woffles on minor derailments or detailed accounts. It's getting hard to see the wood for the trees.

I suggest that this page should concentrate on brief 2-line summaries of key international accidents. Detailed descriptions of accidents should be cross-referenced either by country or individual accident. A list of US rail accidents needs to be set up (like the British one) and the longer descriptions and minor shunts like Manassas need to be shifted to that. The significant accidents can be cross-referenced from this page. Maybe a statement of intent is needed at the top to encourage people not to add trivia to this particular page. Hyperman 42 02:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this list is very interesting and informative, but do feel it is somewhat unwieldly, and could used breaking in fifty year segements or so. The information presented is largely very good, although there are a few individual articles about events here that aren't linked to, I tried to add them in, but I doubt I got all of them. Anyway, good job, well done--Jackyd101 02:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I also came across this website, which lists a number of Indian accidents, some quite serious, which aren't on your list. Its here just in case you find it useful.

"Train wrecks in India"

Derailment Photos

Ive found a website that has lots of pictures of derailed trains. Storm05 18:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Broken down the list

Alright, at 121 kilobytes this thing was a _tad_ bit long. I've stripped the content prior to 1950 and put it in List of pre-1950 rail accidents, changed the TOC headings so that every year can be jumped to right from the TOC (before that, this only worked for the 1990s and 2000s) and removed some fluff from the USA entries (which, in my opinion, do need a lot of copyediting). --Doco 19:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Years without accidents

Why do we need to put in years that were no notable accidents (i.e. 1959)

24.47.134.240 22:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

They don't really have to be there, but since this is a work in progress, there is a strong likelihood that incidents from these years will show up eventually, thus including them now, saves time later--Jackyd101 00:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for move

Going by naming conventions, I believe that this article should be moved to "List of train accidents." --Gurubrahma 16:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The thing with the current title tram and light rail accidents are within scope (I can't remember if there are any or not) rather than just accidents involving trains. Thryduulf 18:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

San Benedetto tunnel accident

Has anyone heard of this accident? http://home.no.net/lotsberg/artiklar/andersen/en_table_1.html => 1984

Looks like one that ought to be listed...

I agree. This is a wiki, be bold and add it yourself. Thryduulf 13:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

I've added a {{cleanup}} tag for two reasons. First, there is quite a bit of bad spelling on the page which needs to be fixed (including one example on the map (Axidents)!). Second, I believe that there are "accidents" in the list that should not be there. See the next section (Criteria for inclusion). Philip J. Rayment 09:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Map of accidents by country

I don't believe that the recently-added map of accidents by country is a good idea. It is based solely on the accidents listed on the page at a particular (unspecified) point in time (a further accident was added since the map was created), and has little relevance given that the list itself is not in any sense representative of the number of accidents in each country; rather it is almost certainly skewed according to the countries of contributors to this English wiki. Philip J. Rayment 09:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. There is also no agreed criteria for inclusion - many of the accidents in the USA are minor whereas only major accidents from other countries are included, with the UK somerewhere between the two. It is also not a fair comparison as the USA has a much larger rail network with a very significalty higher number of train movements than (almost?) every other country. An adjusted measure, taking into account the number of accidents per train kilometer would be better but almost impossible to source, it would also not take into account the difference between the traffic - I beleive the primary traffic on USA railways is freight whereas I think the Dutch network is almost entirely passenger. The culture following an accident is also very different between countries and even over time in the same country - in the UK a minor mishap that resulted in no significant damage would have gone unreported beyond the depot years ago now needs to be formally reported to various authorities who may chose to investigate.
In short there are far too many variables to make it useful (its also got a glaring spelling error "axidents"), so I'll remove it. Thryduulf 09:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion

For ease of discussion, this section has been moved to /Criteria for inclusion. Thryduulf 00:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

London bombings

Do they qualify as accidents, when there was clearly a terrorist motive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.54.204.87 (talk • contribs)

You know, you're right, they weren't accidents. However, they were significant events that affected rail transport in the area, just as the Spanish (2004) and Russian (2005) events, which are also listed here. I guess I'm undecided on whether they should stay here or not. Slambo (Speak) 11:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I've been debating this with myself for a while as well. Perhaps we should have (a better worded) List of terrorist incidents on the railway section? Off the top of my head, I'm not certain there are enough significant incidents (the countless IRA bomb warnings are not significant imho) for a stand-alone list. Unless there was a combined public transport list - there have been a number of bus bombings in Israel/Palestine (and I think Sri Lanka as well) for example. Thryduulf 13:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
And there are many more that are attributed to Maoist or Naxalist sympathizers in mainland India (Google News lists many each day, and I see there are two more listed today). The three that are in the list now are those that received the most widespread media attention as far as I can tell. I wouldn't mind so much if they were split out to a separate list, but I'm not sure that would be better. As to the proposed list name, I dislike the word "terrorist" as it's been associated with far more now by our lovely King George II that would not have earned that monicker in the 1990s (such as a sit-in to prevent trucks carrying hazardous materials from entering certain wildlife areas; environmental issue protesters have been labeled "domestic terrorists" by the current regime). But back to the issue at hand, strictly speaking, these incidents aren't accidents. This brings up another question about inclusion; should we include events in this list that were caused by deliberate sabotage? Slambo (Speak) 14:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Ignoring the "terrorist card" comments (I could say whole lot, but that is a discussion for another place. At least President Tony isn't quite that bad. Yet.), the sabotage question is a good one. They deserve to be listed somewhere, so perhaps renaming the list to "List of rail accidents and incidents" would be good. It would also neatly solve the problem of the London bombings et al, but we would have to agree criteria for inclusion. Imho the bar should be set higher than just a SPAD that leads to no accident (according to the Rail Safety and Standards Board there were 21 'Category A' in January 2006]]), but we have to be able to include significantly notable events that led to no fatalities. Thryduulf 21:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Should be in a separate section. If we include terrorist incidents shouldn't we also include all the incidents due to acts of war - there must have been hundreds in World War II alone

Exile 20:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for split

As this file is growing rather large, what about a split 2000 and before, and 2005 after?

The split files should have tidy names:

  • List of rail accidents 1801-1950
  • List of rail accidents 1951-2000
  • List of rail accidents

Tabletop 03:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, since we're going onto three pages now, it seems prudent to make a navbox something like (using the proposed names):
List of rail accidents (by years)
1801-1950 · 1951-2000 · 2001-present
Slambo (Speak) 10:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I split it. I couldn't take it any more!  :) Navbox away, I did the hard part. (Though I kept the decades together - that makes more sense with the way everything is set up.)  :) Rmarquet 02:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Shorten, prioritize

It seems to me that this page is getting excessively long and nit-picky. I specifically reference the "March 15, 2006 – Manassas, Virginia" incident, though there seem to be dozens of others along the way. To include such minor incidents at all seems unnotable, and to compare it with larger train disasters like the Glendale accident makes it all the worse. What if there were a List of automobile accidents, on which everyone would add the minor fender-benders he saw on his way to work that morning? Worst of all, the large number of accidents in 2004 - 2006, at least in comparison to the early years, makes present-day rail travel seem unsafe. I think that the page needs cleanup. -- Runnerupnj 14:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps we should set a threshold of 1 fatality to a rail passenger/driver, signifcant national media coverage and/or a significant long term impact on policy/operations (I'm thinking along the lines of the national chaos caused by Hatfield in the UK or an accident that results in the withdrawal of all of a certain class of loco/unit. Not a month of disruption to the services on one line). Obivously accidents that don't meet these criteria but are otherwise particularly noteworthy (e.g. the first) can go in. Thryduulf 16:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is a bit long; perhaps an initial split by century would be helpful? I've been using the amount of media attention as a rough gauge on whether or not to include items into the list. The great overwhelming majority of incidents that I read about are only reported on one or two rail-related websites; incidents that I see reported in multiple media sources are more likely to be significant to the average reader. One tool I use for prominence is a Google News search for +railway | +railroad -"underground railroad" -"Railroad Earth". However, I also usually tend to skip over incidents where it's one person driving around the gates at a level crossing, walking along the right of way or otherwise acting stupidly around the trains unless there's a significant impact to rail traffic or unless it involves significant personalities (I almost added the incident earlier this week where "Miss Deaf Texas" Tara McAvoy died after being struck by a UP train; see: Trains NewsWire, Texas School for the Deaf and several others). Slambo (Speak) 16:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Why don't we remove everything where no passengers and less than 6 people outside the train were killed. We should not have freight train derailments or level-crossing accidents with a car. If several passengers were injured or other major reasons we could keep them. I aggre that it is strange that there are so many from the 21st century. It seems that every time a rail accident is reported in media it appears here. /BIL 12:42, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm doing a long distance train journey tomorrow. Do I dare to do that? The number of accidents per year increases heavily. 217.208.214.180 01:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference method

Could we agree on a method of citing references? The primary methods are either a footnote, or just a link within the line. I'm guilty of using both, but we should be consistent. (Personally, I prefer the second method - the first method requires two clicks and the footnotes are often just a link to the article anyway with no extra information.) Rmarquet 14:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should standardise, and I've got no preference for which so I'm happy to go with the inline link. 82.2.173.196 21:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC) Thryduulf 21:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Edits by 84.0.219.238

84.0.219.238 seems to be making an excessive number of edits to little effect. Any idea what the edits are meant to achieve, apart from cluttering up the history list? WLDtalk|edits 13:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Recent combine of the pages?

Why did someone combine the pages? I can't find any discussion about it, but there's plenty on this page about splitting them, and no reason given for the combine. Here is the last non-split version of this page - can we revert and fix the garbage that's there now? (Yeah, I'm frustrated - I put in a decent amount of time getting that split page to look right and all, and now it's been undone, and badly, for no obvious reason.) Rmarquet 20:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC) (Correction - that link is the first time the pages were combined. The last "good" page would be right before that one.) Rmarquet 20:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even notice when I made the small formatting change to get the whitespace displaying properly again. It seems that someone was a little too bold considering the consensus that we've developed on this talk page for the split in the first place. Slambo (Speak) 20:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Rollback reason

The latest addition appears to be a direct copyvio from the Boston Herald, so I've reverted its addition. Slambo (Speak) 14:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of the word "disaster"

Perhaps this has already been discussed elsewhere, but it seems to me that there is no distinction between the words "disaster" and "crash." For example, Waterfall train disaster had seven dead from a derailment, while Dete train crash had over forty dead from a head-on collision. I'm sure to the families involved, all crashes are "disasters." Perhaps it would be better to uniformly use the word "crash" or "accident" when an incident involves a failure of the rail system, and reserve "disaster" for incidents involving natural disasters or terrorism. Cmprince 23:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about names that some accidents get. Those aren't assigned by us, they're generally assigned by the reporters or the locals that live near the accident, and we shouldn't attempt to rename them to use uncommon names. For example, the article on a certain famous entertainer is entitled Johnny Carson, not his real name John William Carson, because "Johnny Carson" is what he's most famous as, and it's what someone who is looking for that article would be most likely to search for. Rmarquet 12:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
"Crash" is factual. "Disaster" is a colloquialism and is arguably a "point of view" as it conveys emotion and superstition. It literally means "bad star" and stands for a "bad event". Wahkeenah 13:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
If Cmprince was arguing about using the words "crash" or "disaster" to describe an event in general, I'd agree that we shouldn't call them "disasters" (or even "crashes", in favor of more specific language). But these are specific named events he's talking about, it seems: The Dete train crash versus "a train crashed last week". Rmarquet 17:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it seems fair to use the commonly-used name, even if it sounds like a headline. Wahkeenah 01:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
How common are these names, though? And who are journalists to decide what an event should be called? If The New York Times calls a crash in South America a "crash" and The Guardian calls it a "disaster," what name do you choose?
"Disaster" is POV, and arbitrarily applying the word doesn't help. My 2 cents. Cmprince 01:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The names are common enough that someone was able to write Wikipedia articles about the events, and then others were able to find those and make edits, and then yet others were able to add them to this list. To me, your request is akin to renaming the Chernobyl disaster to "Chernobyl Exceptional Nuclear Event" - sure, the new name is accurate, but not what it's usually called. Rmarquet 21:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that many train crashes actually have commonly decided adjectives. I first wrote the Dete article, and I somewhat arbitarily chose the word crash as I felt it was more descriptive than disaster. I think that crash is probably a better word, although as long as the title retains the word train everyone will understand what is being discussed.--Jackyd101 21:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation Need For Toronto Derailment February 2001

I just added a derailment from a CBC article about the February 7, 2001 Don Valley Derailment. It needs a citation. The article is here http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/02/07/010207train.html Thank you Kenny Sullivan 03:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidental accidents

I've done a lot on this article, especially in researching and listing the earliest accidents in the 1800s, but I notice a recent proliferation of incidental accidents - suicides on the tracks, people killed in platform accidents... A circa 1927 grade crossing accident with a stranded car was deleted from the list last year. I fear that we don't have the room or the level to start listing every trespasser fatality that occurs. That is really beyond the scope of an encyclopedia.

I haven't made any deletions yet - but I throw this issue to the floor for discussion. Mark Sublette 23:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)C. Mark SubletteMark Sublette 23:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of comment or dissent, I have deleted the two minimal items I don't see in the scope of this project. Mark Sublette 20:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)C. Mark SubletteMark Sublette 20:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

We're getting trespasser accidents listed again... Mark Sublette (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Rolling contact fatigue

Is this also known as Rolling resistance, possibly? It seems to me to be the same sort of thing, and is related to wear and tear of materials. Reason I mention it is that one of the incidents listed has "rolling contact fatigue" as the reason for the accident, when the link is not available on wikipedia. If these are one and the same, maybe it would be an idea to either set up a redirect or correct the link to show the new name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.44.145 (talk) 19:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, rolling contact fatigue is a previously misunderstood or undiagnosed condition in which the rail fails not simply at a flaw resulting in cracking, but in that it shatters completely into many fragments... Mark Sublette (talk) 05:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 05:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Not in here

http://www.kttc.com/News/index.php?ID=23687

More recent train accident in the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.10.100.242 (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Referencing

The article as a whole is very poorly referenced. I propose that it be given the same treatment as the Glossary of UK railway terminology article was. All unreferenced entries tagged to highlight them and after a suitable period of time has elapsed to allow refs to be provided, unreferenced items are removed to a subpage of this talk page where they can be held until references can be provided, at which point the can be readded to the article. Mjroots (talk) 18:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Avoid getting too big.

To avoid getting too big, this file should be restarted in say 2010 as List of rail accidents (2010-2019) and so on.

List of rail accidents (2000–present) should be renamed List of rail accidents (2000-2009).

Tabletop (talk) 06:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not a list of notable rail accidents

It is a list of rail accidents.

Do things like that really need to be entered? Perhaps a loose definition of "notable" should be proposed. Klosterdev (talk) 23:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed; the list will get rather messy if we are to start documenting all train accidents. For example, the French Wikipedia has a list of principle accidents as well as specialized lists by country -- for example, fr:Liste des accidents ferroviaires en France (List of rail accidents in France) versus fr:Liste des principaux accidents ferroviaires (list of principle rail accidents). Does this model seem reasonable? 83.203.183.112 (talk) 12:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
This accident is actually notable since it's the only time a Shinkansen train in service had been derailed for a non-man made reason (one train had overrun and become derailed) and also the only time someone aboard a Shinkansen had come close to getting injured from a non-self inflicted cause (like opening the door and jumping out to commit suicide when the train is moving). In short, despite no fatality or injury, it's the only instance of "Shinkansen accidents". --Revth (talk) 02:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
If that is the reason for the notability of the accident (which I do not doubt), I suggest that fact be noted somewhere on the page and appropriately cited. Actually, most of these things need notability and citation checks, it would seem. 83.203.183.112 (talk) 10:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion The similar article List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft has a guideline that only accidents which are notable enough to have their own article should be included in the list. Copying that guidleine would allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff here too. 82.1.63.98 (talk) 13:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Victims outside trains

I have got the impression that 100 times as many people are killed who are hit by trains (in cars or walking) by accidents than people killed onboard because of accident, and then are suicides not counted. Should we mention this if a source can be found?
By the way, some such accidents are in our list. Should they be in, considering they are common? In Sweden alone, 101 people died on railways in 2007 alone, of them about 70 suicides and about 30 accidents (Olyckor på järnvägen minskade 2008(Swedish)). 4 people died onboard trains during 1990-2008 in Sweden. --BIL (talk) 23:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

State flags

One of the nice things about marking items in this list with country flags, is that it helps people learn the flags. What about extending this to display state and provincial flags, such as

Oppose Country flag is sufficient. Mjroots (talk) 11:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed cull of entries

Similar to the recent cull of entries on the List of rail accidents (2010–2019), I propose to cull non-notable entries from this list. All entries proposed will be listed here and a week allowed for discussion. Generally, articles falling within WP:RAILCRASH criteria C will be targeted. Mjroots (talk) 07:55, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Baaaaaa!

Germany April 26, 2008 – Collision between a InterCityExpress train and a herd of sheep at the mouth of the German longest rail tunnel, 19 of the train's 135 passengers being lightly injured. Four people suffered fractures.

How many sheep suffered? Simply south (talk) 22:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Das autos?--82.11.109.194 (talk) 13:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Burbank, California; Jan 6, 2006

Regarding this entry

  • United States Jan 6, 2006 – Burbank, California: A Metrolink train stuck a passenger car at the dangerous Buena Vista crossing in this Los Angeles suburb, killing 1. This confusing and badly designed crossing had several previous fatal and non-fatal accidents and Metrolink had ignored NTSB recommendations to improve it.[original research?]


As I've mentioned in the past, I haven't been anywhere near California in my life, but I can scan a Google Street View as much as the next person, and I saw a "North Buena Vista Street" crossing squeezed tightly between North San Fernando Boulevard, San Fernando Road and I-5(Golden State Freeway). I don't know about this being a "confusing" crossing, but it does look like a poor design. Assuming this is the crossing they're talking about, I'll see if I can find anything on the NTSB trying to get Metrolink to improve it. ----DanTD (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Remove non rail operations minor incident?

Comments please on removing accident listed as 'November 7, 2008 – An 18-year-old woman loses part of an arm when she falls between a train and the platform at Wokingham Station in Berkshire.' as it does not seem to be due to rail operations - more an accident that happened to take place on a railway. Also does not seem notable enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.99.20 (talk) 11:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

That synopsis was poor. I've updated from the source that she fell onto the tracks into the path of an approaching train. As for notability, I doubt it, but I cannot find the definition that applies. Tim PF (talk) 13:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Rewording poorly written synopsis doesn't really address whether this kind of incident should be on this page. It was a minor accident that didn't depend on, or change, railway operations - a woman happened to be standing on a railway platform when she fainted and fell partly in-front of the train, would this warrant an entry in (say) bus accidents if a bus caused the same injuries due to someone fainting at the bus stop? (There are 200-300 deaths on UK railways alone due to trespass, suicide, misadventure etc. but they don't seem to warrant entries on this page - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11014520). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.99.20 (talk) 16:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
We have a crazy sense of proportion in the UK (and probably many other countries), as minor incidents such as this on the railways will effectively block a line until investigated by BTP, often causing widespread disruption and hence a news report on the incident. The converse is that many fatal RTAs go almost unnoticed, except perhaps by a transient travel report notice.
As for railway operations, they were disrupted for 3 or 4 hours: "Train services between Reading and Gatwick Airport were among those badly disrupted by the incident. A spokesman for Network Rail confirmed the incident, saying: 'The train struck a woman as it arrived at Wokingham Station at approximately 8.12am. The line was reopened at 9.35am and a normal service was expected from midday." Tim PF (talk) 22:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Agree about sensitivity.
What is the reason for including this one over 100's (possibly 1000's) of others that would fall into the same category? (relatively minor and not directly related to rail safety - just happened to take place on a railway) If reports like this were included on an equal basis from all countries I would imagine there would be 100's of incidents a year listed from less well developed countries, e.g. falling from carriage roofs.
Sorry not to be clear, for railway operations I meant rules and regs being followed or changed, not trains being delayed or cancelled (that in my book would be effecting railway services). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.96.171 (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
I didn't add this incident, so I don't know the reason for its addition. It probably should be removed, but you should be bold and do so yourself.
Note that there may be many cases where notable accidents should be included, even though rules and regulations were followed to the letter, such as with landslides or motor-vehicle driver error (eg Great Heck rail crash. Many rapid transit systems are now being built with platform screen doors which would have prevented such an incident.
I also note that similar lists have multiple deaths by stampedes (such as the Hillsborough disaster or Bethnal Green tube station#Wartime disaster), and a panic or surge could result in scores of people pushed onto the tracks, which would indeed be notable. Tim PF (talk) 14:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Flags

I've reverted the removal of all flags from this article. It is a long-standing conventions that flags may be used in lists of identify countries. This is done on a vast number of lists covering rail accidents, shipwrecks, aircraft accidents etc. The reason for the removal of the flags was WP:MOSFLAG, which is a guideline. Most of what MOSFLAG says seems to be aimed at biographical articles, not lists such as this. Mjroots (talk) 10:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I feel that the flags are redundant decoration; we already explain where each accident happens, and these rail accidents are in no way "national". This isn't a list of countries, it's a list of rail accidents.
WP:MOSFLAG says "Do not emphasize nationality without good reason" and "Accompany flags with country names"; this article fails on both points although I'm more concerned about the former than the latter. Neither of those rules are specific to BLPs (although BLPs are a common focus for nationalistic rivalry &c) bobrayner (talk) 11:12, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
If we're discusing the interpretation of policy & guidelines on flags, then it's likely to affect a lot more articles than this one, so I think it would be a good idea to get input from other people, not just you & me How about a different venue? Take it to WT:MOSFLAG, or maybe even an RfC?
RFC opened here. Mjroots (talk) 16:55, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I've again reverted the removal of flags. Although the RFC has run for 30 days, it has not been closed. I'm not convinced that the overwhelming consensus is that the flags are to go. But, if they are going, the simple removal of the flags is not the way to do it. Each entry will need to be rewritten to remove the flag, an introduce the name of the country concerned in text, as flags are not supposed to be replacing text. Let's wait for the RFC to be actually closed, then go from there. Mjroots (talk) 15:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to add that I took a look at the version without the {{flagicon}}s, and I found some of the entries difficult to follow, with at least one with no wikilink left. If the flags themselves are to go in a quick edit, I think it might be preferable to replace them with a plain wikilink, and then work through those manually to ensure that location information is not lost. Alternatively, these should be combed through first to ensure that the location will be as clear once the flags are removed before doing so. Tim PF (talk) 18:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I totally agree with you Tim PF. If the flag is the only indicon of location, then we have to find some way, be it a (rewrite of the entry), to link to the location, IF RELEVANT. I noticed flags are applied to trains that most certainly traverse more than one country, so does the flag indicate where it crashed, or the owner? Mjroots Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (icons)/RFC on the use of flagicons in lists had participated in this rfc. What he is saying sounds like he is pretending he had no participation of the consensus building process. Also, @Mjroots, admins do not need to close discussions, and only most deletion discussions need to be closed by admins.Curb Chain (talk) 23:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Tim PF, which entry is that removing the flag removed all indicia of location? Another reason we don't need to use the national is because this is to unspecific.Curb Chain (talk) 23:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I was aware of the RFC about this, and had watchlisted the talk page, but I wasn't following it too closely, and I cannot say that I noticed very much consensus on the issue.
The one I particularly noticed was the Indian one you missed the first time: "* India August 18, 2006 – two carriages catch fire on the Chennai-Hyderabad Express near Secundrabad station". However, a quick scan down from there to the end show up quite a few which don't conform to the * {{flagicon}} date – [main article], location: description format. Most of those appear to be on islands or large countries such as India where nationality is unlikely to be an issue.
As for transnational trains, most of the ones I have noticed only concern two countries and the trains are often shared or jointly owned. The {{flagicon}} appears to relate to the site of the crash at the time, which is also likely to be one of the joint owners, unlike with aircraft, where a plane registered in A can crash in B when flying from C to D. Do you notice an example where the aircraft scenario is the case?
If you note the edit history, you'll see that I deleted 16 long uncited incidents for 2008, but I didn't think of checking the formats as well; that would have taken a lot more time. I do try and pick up formatting on new additions, but trudging through every year will take a considerable time, and even longer if the {{flagicon}} (or plain country link) has gone (yes, I know I can juggle an old version in another browser window). Tim PF (talk) 09:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Why? You just stated that not all incidents have pertinance to the flag, which represents a country. Why are there flags at all? "The {{flagicon}} appears to relate to the site of the crash at the time, which is also likely to be one of the joint owners,": So your not sure about this? Then why include the information? In any case, the flags can go for now, and the information can be added later. Take this case: If you were to include the country information now, removed some flags, and leave flags on others, other editors will start adding the flags back. In any case, shouldn't each of these entries researched throughly before being added? Also, there was consensus was established with the extra section that we added onto the guideline. Please follow it, and if you choose not to participate in our discussion, then I can't agree with your claim that consensus was not developed.Curb Chain (talk) 05:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I might be misreading you: "However, a quick scan down from there to the end show up quite a few which don't conform to the * {{flagicon}} date – [main article], location: description format. Most of those appear to be on islands or large countries such as India where nationality is unlikely to be an issue.". So you mean that the flag shouldn't even be appended to the entry, for islands, because the nationality is so irrelevant? Well I agree with you, and all the flags are not relevant, because the location is. The size of the country makes the site of the crash irrelevant; in Canada, a much more precise location is worth much more than the nationalism of the flag.Curb Chain (talk) 06:18, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
You are still misreading me, although that may be a knock-on effect of me misreading you.
If one of your reasons for removing flags is because the nationality may be misleading, then that can only affect incidents to cross-border services (which are only a small proportion of incidents), and you have not cited such an incident for which a wrong flag is currently used. Islands and large countries go together with (sub-)urban rail systems, which are not trans-national.
I have also not advocated just removing flags from some entries. Once you have cited some incidents for which the flag is contentious or incorrect, I might then be able to consider if those should be corrected, or if it is better to just systematically remove the flags, whilst preserving the correct location. Tim PF (talk) 13:56, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Well we do know the incidents' location. But including the flag, as you have mentioned above, may mean/indicate many different things: the location, the companies' nationality, the country in which the trains' registered, the country that pays' the day-to-day running of the trains', etc.Curb Chain (talk) 01:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Hypothetically, but you have not yet cited any examples for which this is a problem. Tim PF (talk) 19:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
So you are saying there are no conflicts/contradictions?Curb Chain (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
No, I'm just saying that I hadn't noticed any, but that you appear to be saying there are; it should be much easier for you to show even one such example, than for me to trawl through to show that there aren't.
Furthermore, it is one matter to remove those flags because there are clear problems or due to MOS policies, and quite another to do so because you just think there might be. Tim PF (talk) 09:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
You are right, that's why I haven't removed them.Curb Chain (talk) 11:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
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