Factors That Can Cause Rail Accident By Peter Owinje

Written by: Peter Owinje.

First and foremost this article is not written to undermine the safety and benefits of rail transport system as a reliable transport mode to the public. A passenger car is made to carry passengers who travel regularly from one place to another. The passenger train cars have been improved in terms of convenience, comfort and speed, and due to these qualities people enjoy travel a long distance with passenger train cars, and it is also more effective in a heavily populated areas.

Moreover, articulate passenger cars are gaining more popularity in Europe and in US. This is because major cities in Western Europe are connected by high-speed rail service such cities include London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, Berlin, Rome among others.  In articulated passenger train cars, jointed cars are attached to a truck for normal operations, this also creates more rooms for more passengers to be carried in a single journey.

However, as many people around the world are patronizing rail transport daily for short and long mobility, for example, Indian Railways carries 22.21 million passengers daily, like wise there is also increase in rail accident. However, there are factors that can make rail accidents extremely dangerous, they are: The weight; The speed & The length to mention but just a few.

The weight of a train

A passenger trains is much lighter than freight or cargo train, in other words, the weight of a commuter or passenger train is lesser than the weight of a cargo train. When passengers in a commuter train are involved in a crash or collision with a cargo train, injuries resulting from the accident are reflected on the passengers and this force is affected by the physical weight of a cargo train.  Therefore, if there is a train crash or collision between a commuter and freight train, probably due to poor communication, the cargo train has a lot more mass and momentum to win the fight. In other words, the cargo train has the capacities to cause more harm to passenger train if accident or collision occurs.

In a collision that involve 2 trains e.g. cargo train and commuter train, which differ in weight the lighter train will be at disadvantage. The heavier trains i.e. (cargo train) will has more force due to the weight to push the lighter one which is passenger train backward during the impact, which often results to derailment of the passenger train.

The speed of a train

Speed has been identified as one of the potential factor for rail accidents; many people have lost their lives in rail accident due to high speed of train drivers. Often time when over speed is the direct factor of rail accident the result is always horrifying.

The length of a train

The length of a train is an important factor we need to consider among other factors that can cause rail accident, but unfortunately, most people including accident investigators pay little or no attention to this undeniable factor. The longer a train is the higher the chances of involving in accident than a shorter train. Often time when rail accident occurred the investigators have to examine the potential factors that may cause the wreck and those factors they usually look at are: the speed as at the time of the incident, track conditions, throttle and brake settings among others, they may even go a bit further to interview the engineer, the passengers, and so on, in other to determine the cause of the accident, but it is interesting to note that most of these accident investigators hardly considered  the effect of train length on train accident rate.

They took undeniable length of a train for granted. They do not know that the longer the length of a train is, can be one of the potential factors for an accident to occur in rail transport. They do not know that the longer the length of a train the higher the risk of a train involving in an accident.

The train length is considered to have an effect on rail accident rate, this is because the more the cars in a train increase the higher the probability that a car or track element in or below a train may fail at any point in time during operation. With this knowledge, causes of accident in this regard, can be divided into 2 types which are: firstly, the accident that can generate from the number of train-miles covered and secondly, the one that can generate from the cars-miles covered. (CCP 1995, Arthur D, Little (ADL)1996). However, the length of a train in this article means the total number of the cars in a train. It is not the linear measurement of actual length of a train. It is the total number of cars that is attached to a single truck to move with.

A worrisome factor !

A passenger train is specially made to carry people in their large number. The longer the train the higher the number of passenger it will carry. Most rail accidents are avoidable accident because they are caused by human factor, yet it is human that suffers most in the accident, many people suffer permanent injuries why many even lost their lives. This is worrisome. For instance, when there is collision between two passenger trains, the object that suffers most is the occupants (the passengers), hence, the saying: ‘If two elephants fight the grass will suffer’.

The most painful thing is that most innocent people suffer when accident happen, it is important to note that it is not only passengers that suffer when rail accidents happen, even the pedestrian, bystander, motorist etc also suffer in rail accidents. For instance, The National Highway Traffic safety Administration (NHTSA) says approximately every three hours, a person or vehicle crash with a train in the US. However, for better understanding on the most worrisome factor in rail accidents here below are the examples of rail accidents

‘At least 23 people died and dozens were injured when 2 passenger trains collided head-on in southern Italy on Tuesday, …’ source: New Europe al jazeera.

A total of 27, 581 Indians died in 2014 in railway related accidents…. By the National Crime Records Bureau.

On 26 Nov., 1998, in khanna, at least 212 killed as a train collides with a derailed train.

On Sept., 2002, in Rajdhani, the Rajdhani Express derails on bridge, killng at least 130 people.

On May 28, 2010, in West Midnapore, West Bengal, The Calcutta-Mumbai passenger train derails, killing at least 100.

On August 2, 1999, at least 290 killed as two trains carrying a total of 2,500 people collide.

Nevertheless, ‘The worst accident was the November 20, 2016 derailment of the Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur which resulted in 150 deaths and over 150 injuries.’ Source: Hindustan-times.

Nevertheless, you will notice from the given examples of rail accident that, the most common fact is the death of people in the accidents as well as the injured people. Many important personalities in communities were sent to their early grave for choosing rail transport for their journey. Painful enough, most of these are caused by human errors, in simple language, human making an error that sends other humans to their early grave is the most worrisome truth in this article. Therefore, the need to promote railway transport safety in all ramifications, so that rail passengers can enjoy more perfectly safe transportation is vital and not negotiable.

Thank you for reading.

Image credited to: Pixabay by Skilter-photo