
Germany train crash: Several killed in Bavarian town of Bad Aibling - kercker
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35530538
======
Mithaldu
Note that in this particular case two trains belonging to a small regional
short distance company collided.

I have relatives working for "Die Bahn"^, which is the actual national train
company. And i can tell you that this kind of thing is a direct result of the
privatization of the train industry in germany. First it simply resulted in
less quality in transport, with money being saved on the maintenance of non-
critical parts, such that i.e. one car per train may have non-functioning air
control.

Now small unaffiliated transport companies have sprung up to cover very short
distance trips on budgets just as short. The result is what you have in the
article.

The only good news is that as of yet, travelling with Die Bahn is still safe,
since they at least spend a lot of money on training and maintenance of
critical parts.

^pronounced "dee bahn", meaning "The Rail"

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smhg
As a European I consider trains to be the most comfortable way of traveling
available today. Planes have these awkward boarding procedures and trains,
even in economy, have nice amounts of moving space.

It is so mind-boggling to me how train-to-train crashes can occur. You can
naively assume this must be one of the easier things to prevent. Especially in
a highly developed country like Germany.

Does this mean train infrastructure (in Europe) is so outdated? Or why does
this seem to happen fairly often?

 _Edit:_ According to the Wikipedia list mentioned below there seems to be a
train-to-train collision about every 2 years in (Western) Europe. Let's not
focus on whether that is a lot or not, but what generalizations can be made
about their causes.

~~~
Piskvorrr
This _seems_ to happen fairly often (note the emphasis); things that
_actually_ happen often are not on the news (because
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_values](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_values)
).

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2010%E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_\(2010%E2%80%93present\))
: I have counted about 170 fatalities 2010-2016 for the whole of EU, about
half of which (81) is from the 24 July 2013, Santiago de Compostela
derailment, about another quarter is "train hits car after driver went around
the barriers," and there seem to be significant numbers of sabotage (about 20
fatalities). In that, I have counted only 5 train-to-train crashes (Buizingen,
Szczekociny, Sloterdijk, Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Bad Aibling).

See also this Eurostat report: even for the deadliest year for a long time
(the Santiago derailment again), train collisions accounted for 101 deaths per
year. [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Transport_accident_statistics#Railway_accident_statistics)

You are quite correct that this is a well-understood problem, one that is
prevented millions of time per day as the absolute baseline of any railway
system. Of course, _when_ it happens, it makes the news - precisely because
it's so rare. If two cars collide and people die, that's not news - that
happens all the time (at least 27 101 people in 2013, across 23 EU member
states).

~~~
Piskvorrr
What is also not on the news (yet it does happen fairly often) are _prevented_
accidents: train passes signal at danger due to driver error, all affected
traffic stops immediately and automatically, some delays and a mountain of
paperwork appears.

 _That_ is an example of the safety system working as designed. No property
damage, no injuries, no loss of life - not newsworthy.

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paxton_warrior
"Someone screwed up" On today's railways, it is very difficult, deliberate
action excepted, for one error to cause an accident of this magnitude. Most
modern railway accidents occur following an unfortunate combination of
coincidental events and\or procedural breakdowns. Technology and procedures
have evolved over the years to ensure that one mistake cannot lead to such an
event. Railway authorities are no longer complacent and reactive in their
application of safety measures as they once were.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Still, it's _quite obviously_ possible. Nobody has implied that this was
specifically due to a single point of failure or a single human error...we'll
have to wait for more data.

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hmans
The JavaScript framework situation is getting out of hand

