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The Eschede derailment occurred on 3 June 1998, near the village of Eschede in the Celle district of Lower Saxony, Germany, when a high-speed train derailed and crashed into a road bridge with 101 people killed and 88 injured. It remains the worst rail disaster in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany and the worst high-speed-rail disaster worldwide. The cause was a single fatigue crack in one wheel that, when it failed, resulted in a part of the wheel becoming caught in a set of points, effectively changing the setting of the points whilst the train was passing over it. This led to the train's carriages going down two separate tracks, causing the train to derail and crash into the pillars of a concrete road bridge, which then collapsed and crushed two coaches. The remaining coaches and the rear power car crashed into the wreckage.
In railroading, a derailment occurs when a rail vehicle such as a train comes off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are a potentially serious hazard.
On 8 March 1996, a Transrail freight train travelling from Mossend, North Lanarkshire, to Willesden, North London, derailed after an axle on a wagon carrying liquid carbon dioxide failed due to fatigue at Rickerscote 1.4 miles (2.2 km) south of Stafford on the West Coast Main Line. Almost immediately after the derailment, a Travelling Post Office mail train hauled by a Rail Express Systems British Rail Class 86 electric locomotive collided with a section of the derailed freight train on the adjacent line and fouled the path of the TPO mail train. One person, a mail sorter, was killed in the crash and twenty others including the driver of the mail train were injured.
The Charfield railway disaster was a fatal train crash which occurred on 13 October 1928 in the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire. The Leeds to Bristol London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) night mail train failed to stop at the signals protecting the down refuge siding at Charfield railway station. The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signalmen. A freight train was in the process of being shunted from the down main line to the siding, and another train of empty goods wagons was passing through the station from the Bristol (up) direction.
Over the latter years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries, Penistone in Yorkshire gained a name as an accident black-spot on Britain's railway network; indeed, it could be said to hold the title of the worst accident black-spot in the country. The main line through the town was the Woodhead route of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway between Sheffield Victoria and Manchester, London Road. The line was heavily graded with a summit some 400 yards inside the eastern portal of the Woodhead tunnel.
The Wootton bridge collapse occurred on 11 June 1861, when the rail bridge over the road between Leek Wootton and Hill Wootton in Warwickshire collapsed under the weight of a passing goods train on the line between Leamington Spa and Kenilworth owned by the London and North Western Railway Company. The train had passed over the bridge safely in the morning with a full load of coal, and was returning to Kenilworth with the empty wagons at 7 am. The 30 ton locomotive fell through the deck of the bridge onto the road below, and the tender crashed into the cab, killing both driver and fireman instantly. Many of the empty wagons behind were dragged into the gap to form a pile almost up to the height of nearby telegraph poles.
The Thirsk rail crash occurred on 31 July 1967 at Thirsk, Yorkshire, England on the British Rail East Coast Main Line.
There have been a number of train accidents on the railway network of Victoria, Australia. Some of these are listed below.
The railways of New South Wales, Australia have had many incidents and accidents since their formation in 1831. There are close to 1000 names associated with rail-related deaths in NSW on the walls of the Australian Railway Monument in Werris Creek. Those killed were all employees of various NSW railways. The details below include deaths of employees and the general public.
A derailment of a night mail train from Scotland to London occurred on the North Eastern Railway when a tender axle suddenly fractured on 28 December 1869 near Dalton Junction, south of Darlington, England. There were only slight injuries among the staff, but the accident was a warning of the problem of premature axle failure.
The Bull Bridge accident was a failure of a cast-iron bridge at Bullbridge, near Ambergate in Derbyshire on 26 September 1860. As a goods train was passing over the bridge at Bullbridge, the structure failed suddenly, causing the derailment of the majority of the wagons. There were no serious casualties, but it was a warning of the fundamental weakness of many such bridges on the British rail network.
The St. Neots Derailment 1895 occurred near to St. Neots railway station on 10 November 1895 when a Great Northern Railway Scottish express from Kings Cross encountered a broken rail.
This article lists significant fatal, injury-only, and other accidents involving railway rolling stock, including crashes, fires and other incidents in the Australian state of South Australia. The first known incident in this list occurred in 1873 in Smithfield, South Australia.
This is a list of significant railway accidents in Queensland, Australia.
The Brandsen rail disaster occurred on March 8, 1981 in Brandsen, a town in Buenos Aires Province in Argentina, when a passenger train carrying 803 passengers collided head-on with a freight train, killing 34 and injuring another 74. The train crash was caused by points failure.
References
- Rolt, L.T.C. (1956). Red for Danger. Bodley Head / David and Charles / Pan Books /Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7509-2047-6.
- Lewis, PR (2007). Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847. Tempus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7524-4266-2.
