7 comments

  • sillysaurusx41 minutes ago
    If you’re interested in this kind of thing, look up plainly difficult on youtube. He has more videos on train crashes than I’ve seen, and I’m embarrassed how many I’ve seen. Here’s one to get you started: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;VV2rIHEp5AM?si=sSBT9s49PqbLTGbt" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;VV2rIHEp5AM?si=sSBT9s49PqbLTGbt</a><p>There are a lot of safety lessons embedded in these videos, which is why I like them. I also did a double take when I heard &quot;semaphore&quot;; its history goes back far longer than the ~century of software engineering. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Semaphore" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Semaphore</a>
  • zhfanlqeo1 hour ago
    The train in question is a Frecciarossa 1000 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Frecciarossa_1000" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Frecciarossa_1000</a><p>The Italians designed it but won&#x27;t run it at more than 300km&#x2F;h in Italy citing local infrastructure concerns. I guess that leaves other countries to find the edge cases. I&#x27;ll be interested to find out how fast it was going during the crash.
    • singingbard7 minutes ago
      Looks like a Frecciarossa 1000 derailed in 2020 but it was due to a manufacturer defect in a track switch replaced the night before.<p>The defect was not caught by the manufacturer or the system operator. It was due to two crossed wires in an assembly.<p>I know a lot more engineering goes into these trains due to the higher stakes. Japan’s high speed rail hasn’t had a fatal accident in 60 years. I’m wondering what the cause of this will turn out to be.
  • deadbabe2 hours ago
    Always try to sit in seats where your back is toward the direction of motion.
    • bjackman33 minutes ago
      Train crashes like this are _so_ rare. It&#x27;s not as safe as flying but AFAICT in rich countries it&#x27;s the same rough order of magnitude in terms of danger level.<p>I don&#x27;t have data but I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all.<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a good use of mental energy to plan for a crash like this. You&#x27;re better off using your brain cycles on hygiene or not losing your luggage.
      • sillysaurusx16 minutes ago
        Brain cycles aren’t a limited supply. Besides, you’ll get to feel a nice jolt of serotonin when you remember to sit backwards.<p>&gt; I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all<p>If this crash is anything like the other ones, you might be surprised. Safety complacency tends to cause maintenance failures. Plus the low speed lines are less deadly since the total energy is proportional to velocity squared, and v is low.<p>In other words, it might be more helpful to look at it as &quot;if they’re run at a higher level of standards, it’s because they have to be&quot;.<p>Statistically you’re probably right, but considering how many brain cycles we waste on non-essentials, it’s just as fun to waste them on this. That way you can start a nerdy conversation with your travel companions, and they can learn to travel without you next time.
    • xlbuttplug21 hour ago
      Huh. I&#x27;d never thought of this. If that is actually meaningfully beneficial, I wonder if they&#x27;d design self driving cars with the seats facing backwards, given there&#x27;s no longer a necessity to look at the road.<p>(edit: I guess it&#x27;s more of no-brainer on a train&#x2F;bus where you don&#x27;t have a seat belt)
      • keyle1 hour ago
        Not the author, but I think there was some research and it&#x27;s indeed better for you if you have head support, to be facing back towards the front. If prevents a whole range of injuries, from your neck, to becoming a projectile yourself.<p>But it&#x27;s really theoretical, and does not account for the passenger in front of you headed head-first into your throat.<p>PS: I laughed hard that xlbuttplug2 is answering to deadbabe. The internet lives!
        • raaron77332 minutes ago
          Interesting. I didnt know this, i always get motiom sickness if i sit facing the opposite direction.
        • rooo99923 minutes ago
          Not sure what kind of cars you drive but in mine all the seats face the same direction. Why would they change that when making it safer?
      • 0xfaded1 hour ago
        Disclaimer I work for Zoox, but here is us crash testing <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;597C9OwV0o4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;597C9OwV0o4</a>
        • deadbolt50 minutes ago
          I enjoyed watching that - though it wasn&#x27;t really related to the seating direction, specifically.<p>Are you one of the safety engineers? Have you discovered anything which isn&#x27;t included in normal safety tests which should be?
      • dtech53 minutes ago
        It&#x27;s incredibly beneficial. However many people dislike it and want to be facing the direction they are moving in, so best case is probably a train-style 4-seater. Which 2 seats facing forward and 2 backwards.
    • perfmode11 minutes ago
      does it help to not be in the first car?
  • alphadatavault5 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • t1234s2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • ycombinatrix43 minutes ago
      How would a cyberattack cause a train to derail on a straight stretch of track?
    • pixl971 hour ago
      From a derailed train on a straight stretch of track... no. Very likely maintenance related somehow.
      • drdirk36 minutes ago
        Spanish article from LaVanguardia states that the train was rather new and the track recently maintained.
  • salynchnew2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • tomhow34 minutes ago
      Please don&#x27;t post like this on HN. This kind of comment is a generic tangent (and a rather ghoulish one), that can be made about any tragedy; yes, no matter how bad something is, there&#x27;s always something worse. It&#x27;s the fact that this is an unusual occurrence that makes it noteworthy. The guidelines ask us to converse curiously and avoid generic tangents and shallow dismissals. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>
    • wk_end2 hours ago
      FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day&#x2F;incident for the US.<p>But of course you&#x27;re not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they&#x27;re ignorant.<p>But - until someone does that, there&#x27;s no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It&#x27;s borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you&#x27;re intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
      • pfdietz1 hour ago
        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;international-railway-safety-council.com&#x2F;safety-statistics&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;international-railway-safety-council.com&#x2F;safety-stat...</a><p>In Europe, trains are 28 times safer than cars (fatalities per passenger-km).
      • rubenflamshep1 hour ago
        ~107 people die per day from car accidents in the USA [0].<p>0. Per 2024 stats from the NHTSA (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nhtsa.gov&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;nhtsa-estimates-39345-traffic-fatalities-2024#:~:text=NHTSA%20Estimates%2039%2C345%20Traffic%20Fatalities%20in%202024&amp;text=The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Transportation&#x27;s,people%20died%20in%20traffic%20crashes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nhtsa.gov&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;nhtsa-estimates-39345-t...</a>)
        • wk_end1 hour ago
          Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340&#x2F;49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that&#x27;d be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined.<p>Like I said, a pretty bad day.
          • deaux1 hour ago
            A completely unremarkable day, more like it. Given stochasticity there&#x27;s bound to be at least a dozen days per year with 50% more than the average, especially since car deaths depend a lot on weekday, holidays, weather and so on - much moreso than train deaths. No one would look up from it, wouldn&#x27;t make the news.
            • wk_end1 hour ago
              You&#x27;re assuming it was the <i>only</i> incident in America that day, rather than an exceptional outlier stacked on top of the usual day in America.<p>Yes, a single car crash killing 150 people would make the news. It would be among the worst, if not the single worst, car accident of all time [0].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Multiple-vehicle_collision" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Multiple-vehicle_collision</a>
              • deaux1 hour ago
                &gt; And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day&#x2F;incident for the US.<p>This is now how I interpreted &quot;bad day&quot;, think it would be clearer to remove &quot;day&quot; if that&#x27;s what you meant. Of course you&#x27;re right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don&#x27;t happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain&#x27;s lack of emotional response to &quot;many small cuts&quot; vs &quot;one big cut&quot; incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal&#x2F;gas are much safer than they are.
      • angra_mainyu45 minutes ago
        The discourse here is more of a criticism of Puentes, who is a very controversial minister overseeing this.
    • dankwizard2 hours ago
      Unusual for a train though.<p>We already know Americans can&#x27;t drive but with trains like... how do you mess up a straight line?
      • georgemcbay2 hours ago
        &gt; how do you mess up a straight line?<p>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&#x27;t necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.<p>That said, in this particular case it basically <i>was</i> just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.<p>Trains don&#x27;t often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.
      • toomuchtodo2 hours ago
        &gt; For the last decade, an average of 1,300 trains derailed each year (in the US), accounting for 61% of all train accidents.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;usafacts.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;are-train-derailments-becoming-more-common&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;usafacts.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;are-train-derailments-becoming...</a><p>&gt; In 2024, there were 1,507 significant railway accidents in the EU, with a total of 750 people killed and 548 seriously injured.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ec.europa.eu&#x2F;eurostat&#x2F;statistics-explained&#x2F;index.php?title=Railway_safety_statistics_in_the_EU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ec.europa.eu&#x2F;eurostat&#x2F;statistics-explained&#x2F;index.php...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Derailment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Derailment</a>
        • fsckboy1 hour ago
          American trains are largely freight travelling long rural distances. You didn&#x27;t mention it, so I presume because you didn&#x27;t take it into account, so your statistics sound to me like they don&#x27;t mean anything comparable.
          • toomuchtodo35 minutes ago
            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.
      • userbinator1 hour ago
        ...when they come off the tracks.<p><i>a high-speed train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed and crossed over onto another track</i>
  • OutOfHere26 minutes ago
    Wear your seat belt. Trains can have them too.