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Comment by dankwizard | Hacker News Reader

Unusual for a train though.

We already know Americans can't drive but with trains like... how do you mess up a straight line?

> how do you mess up a straight line?

One thing I learned working on a system that did train positioning for the 7 Line subway in NYC is that train systems are a lot more complicated than just straight lines. They are complicated networks with custom signaling and the trains don't necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.

That said, in this particular case it basically was just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.

Trains don't often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.

> For the last decade, an average of 1,300 trains derailed each year (in the US), accounting for 61% of all train accidents.

https://usafacts.org/articles/are-train-derailments-becoming...

> In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailment

American trains are largely freight travelling long rural distances. You didn't mention it, so I presume because you didn't take it into account, so your statistics sound to me like they don't mean anything comparable.

Derailments are common is what the stats show. US derailments are largely property damage as they are freight centric, while in Europe, passenger deaths are higher due to more heavy passenger utilization. Derailment is hard to defend against.

No, they are not common. The numbers you've been given are completely wrong.

The GGP has quoted the derailments figure from the USA page, but the total accidents (including trespassers and level crossing accidents) for the EU.

The EU page they cite says there were 63 derailments in 2024.

A derailment in Europe tends to make the news even when there are no injuries.

This single accident has killed more train passengers in Spain than were killed in the whole EU in 2024 (16).

They're not?

Commuter train crashes into crane in Murcia, marking Spain's fourth train crash in five days - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725317 - January 2026

The bulk of those are accidents involving railway crossings. There is a program to get rid of all level crossings in NL but it will take a lot of time and cost a ton of money. But there really is no way in which you can make a level crossing safe in combination with normal train speeds.

I'm half-convinced our good friends the magic robots are totally defeating peoples' ability to read.

> In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.

See the graph titled "Rail accidents by type of accident". There were 63 derailments in 2024; most of the accidents were non-fatal accidents of this type: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

...when they come off the tracks.

a high-speed train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed and crossed over onto another track

Yes we know it derailed, that's not the answer to *how* it failed on a straight line.

How in the cause and effect sense, not which direction it went.

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