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Safest Place on a Train

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Cowley

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I know someone who has had the misfortune to be in two train accidents - one a high speed derailment, the other a high speed collision. In the former, he was in the rear coaches, and it was those that derailed. In the latter he was in the front, and it was those that came off worse.

I imagine that the safest place on a train is the seat next to him, because he would have to be extraordinarily unlucky to be in the worst part of the train involved in yet another incident!

Wow. Does he still catch the train or has it effected him too much?
 
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LowLevel

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Lady Luck takes most precedence I think. I was once working a single carriage 153. The train was "bricked" with a fist sized lump of rock that missed me by inches while I was selling a ticket, took a ricochet off a seat back handle and crashed straight into the face of an elderly lady sat minding her own business (as it happens, facing forward sat towards the rear of the carriage). Any other seat on the train would have avoided injury, she ended up in hospital.
 

Inversnecky

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I think there is really no single right answer to the question because one does not know what sort of 'accident' might occur. Most likely none at all in a million miles, a good reason to love train travel.
Of course no one would know, hence the reference to probability.

In one documentary about the 1997 Southhall crash, reference was made to the fact that had it been older Mark 1 stock (shell on bogies), rather then the resilient tube construction of later marks, fatalities would have been much worse.

Similarly the cab of one class 205 emu that rear ended another at Cowden in 1994 was crushed.

In the scheme of things safety and technological/design improvements much more of a factor than seating location.
 

PG

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Would I be correct in assuming that, statistically speaking, one is safer (anywhere) on the train than while stood on the platform waiting for it...

Come to mention it I'd guess one of the more risky locations is at the PTI (Platform Train Interface) ?
 

bramling

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Would I be correct in assuming that, statistically speaking, one is safer (anywhere) on the train than while stood on the platform waiting for it...

Come to mention it I'd guess one of the more risky locations is at the PTI (Platform Train Interface) ?

Yes the latter is certainly one part of a typical journey where there’s exposure to some level of potential risk. Another is using an escalator at a station.
 

2192

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About 50 years ago, a railwayman said for safest travel "middle of the day, middle of the week, middle of the train, middle of the coach." Presumably because the extra rush hour trains have gone, the fog has lifted and signals are more visible, the staff are more awake, and there are no diversions or temporary speed limits because of engineering works. That didn't stop me choosing the seat behind the driver in Modernisation Plan DMU's, nor travelling when there were weekend diversions over unusual lines.
 

Bald Rick

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Seriously? Statistically that’s absolutely extraordinary.

Does this guy have any suggestions for the lottery numbers?

Yes, seriously. He was also an expert on Rail safety.

Wow. Does he still catch the train or has it effected him too much?

He retired a while ago, but was still using the train regularly last time I saw him. The second one affected him for a while, but then he was physically injured in that.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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@2192 Middle of the day..
That is a good one, but on busy days with long trains I try to sit at the front or the back, because on average the middle coaches are fuller.
 

Mat17

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I always (so far as is practicable) travel backwards on trains, first because I prefer this to travelling forwards. Secondly, I had heard it was safer and I can confirm from my experience I believe this to be true.

I've was once on a HST that was travelling full line speed until it had to do a full emergency brake, which turned out to be because of a suicide.

The guard was travelling through the train examining tickets and so was stood. The braking threw him forward down the aisle (imagine running down a hill trying to hold yourself back), God only knows how, but he remained on his feet, grabbing hold of the seat backs as he went, from the sounds, his arms hit them with some force as he tried to not fall.

The people sat opposite were travelling forward and were thrown into the seat backs in front. I on the other hand was merely was pressed back into my seat (kind of like going down hill on a roller coaster) and had plenty of time to position my arms to cushion the recoil stop, if and when it came, into the seatback in front of me.

So I can totally see how travelling backwards is way safer than facing the direction of travel.
 

Horizon22

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About 50 years ago, a railwayman said for safest travel "middle of the day, middle of the week, middle of the train, middle of the coach." Presumably because the extra rush hour trains have gone, the fog has lifted and signals are more visible, the staff are more awake, and there are no diversions or temporary speed limits because of engineering works. That didn't stop me choosing the seat behind the driver in Modernisation Plan DMU's, nor travelling when there were weekend diversions over unusual lines.

Interesting because I've worked on a project before that most driver incidents (stop short, wrong-side door release etc.) were more likely to happen around 1100-1400 either after or just before PNBs on early shifts where fatigue has accumulated and / or there is a false sense of security after resting.
 

yorksrob

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Wow. Does he still catch the train or has it effected him too much?

It reminds me of an interview I read a while ago with a chap who was involved in two of the big accidents on the Great Western at at around the turn of this century (can't remember which ones out of Southall, Ladbrook Grove or Upton Nevet).

He continued to use the train after that, but always carried a hammer in his briefcase in case he needed to break a window !

I would say the safest place is the buffet car. To avoid the risk of dieing of thirst !
 

SargeNpton

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Seriously? Statistically that’s absolutely extraordinary.

Does this guy have any suggestions for the lottery numbers?
No more extraordinary than Violet Jessop, who survived the sinkings of both the Titanic in 1912 and the Britannic in 1916.
 

Western Lord

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No more extraordinary than Violet Jessop, who survived the sinkings of both the Titanic in 1912 and the Britannic in 1916.
Not only that, she was on board the Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911.

On the subject of rearward facing seats, the Royal Air Force used to insist on rearward facing seats on its transport aircraft, even insisting on civil airliners that were chartered having the seats reversed (airlines like British Eagle and Hunting-Clan became quite adept at doing this fairly quickly between flights). With the introduction of the ex British Airways Lockheed TriStars, this practice ended and with the withdrawal of the VC-10, all RAF transports have had forward facing seats. I believe that somebody did some research and concluded that the damage that could be caused by unrestrained items smashing into rearward facing passengers (including, of course, in those days baggage on open overhead racks) was at least as damaging as anything that might be suffered by a forward facing passenger.
 

Mikey C

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Some 60s planes had forward and rearward facing seats, e.g. on this Hawker Siddeley Trident

90666_1507724692.jpg


 

swt_passenger

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Some 60s planes had forward and rearward facing seats, e.g. on this Hawker Siddeley Trident
RAF trooping aircraft of the time (as noted earlier) such as Comet and Trident had all seats backward facing. I was evacuated from Cyprus in summer 1974 by the RAF, and the feeling on take off was really weird...
 

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Rearward facing seats are safest on aircraft, but they aren't generally used because people wouldn't like them.

They're also safest on trains which is why the end coaches of 125mph units tend to have a lot of them.
 

Calthrop

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A point which arises, concerning the issue of "is the front or back of the train, safer?" -- quite often on passenger runs of a significant distance, the configuration of lines / routes means that at some point(s) the train will reverse direction: so that if one was previously in the front part of it, one will then be in the back part, and vice versa. (Responding by moving to the "opposite-end" part of the train when a reversal took place, would I think generally be seen as safety-questing taken to the point of lunacy.)

"This thing's being thus" was brought to my notice in a thread in "Railway History and Nostalgia" here a few years back, originally on the subject of steam heating; which topic-drifted into "front or back safety-wise", by my posting on something I had heard, concerning South Africa's railways in the era of apartheid. There and then, the general practice was -- subject to circumstances -- to marshal the coaches for Black passengers in the leading part of the train, and those for White ones in the rear. The source where I came across this: continued, to the effect that the South African railways had set up this convention because it was hypothesised that in railway accidents it was more often the train's front vehicles which suffered, than the rear ones; plus, the noise of the steam loco disturbing people's sleep, etc., would affect those in the front coaches, more than those further back -- so, with all this in mind: travellers in the category deemed less valuable, were put in the front.

A poster on that thread responded with a reminder about the "reversing" factor -- whereby on some routes for some of the time and distance, the front of the train would become the rear, and the other way about: obvious when one considers it, but which had never previously occurred to me, for one. So with this "South Africa in the bad old days" thing: the practice may have obtained -- but the cynical rationale given for it, as above, would appear to belong in the "urban legends" department.
 

D6130

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Of course no one would know, hence the reference to probability.

In one documentary about the 1997 Southhall crash, reference was made to the fact that had it been older Mark 1 stock (shell on bogies), rather then the resilient tube construction of later marks, fatalities would have been much worse.

Similarly the cab of one class 205 emu that rear ended another at Cowden in 1994 was crushed.

In the scheme of things safety and technological/design improvements much more of a factor than seating location.
A small, but important, correction, if I may......the collision at Cowden in 1994 was head-on, not rear end. I knew one of the drivers who was killed, the innocent party as it happened. The cabs of both units involved were crushed to such an extent that it was extremely difficult to identify the bodies of the two drivers and the guard of the Northbound train, who was riding in the cab without authority.
 

Class465pacer

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In the middle of the middle carriage, facing backwards so that one is less likely to go flying when the train suddenly stops

Which deck is safer on a double-decker?
Definitely lower deck. I’m very surprised double deckers (especially older ones) pass crash tests when the roof can so easily be sliced off in a meeting with a low bridge.

Edit: Are you referring to double decker trains? I’d still pick lower deck, same with double deck aircraft
 

PG

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Definitely lower deck. I’m very surprised double deckers (especially older ones) pass crash tests when the roof can so easily be sliced off in a meeting with a low bridge.

Edit: Are you referring to double decker trains? I’d still pick lower deck, same with double deck aircraft
The main test which double decker buses are subject to is the tilt test, they must be able to achieve 28 degrees from the horizontal without toppling over while fully laden on only the upper deck.
AFAIK the roof structure has no requirement for any resistance to meeting any immovable object hence why they come straight off in most of these incidents.
 

AM9

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Definitely lower deck. I’m very surprised double deckers (especially older ones) pass crash tests when the roof can so easily be sliced off in a meeting with a low bridge.

Edit: Are you referring to double decker trains? I’d still pick lower deck, same with double deck aircraft
Aircraft aren't really on topic but I'd see the upper deck as safer, especially if there's a crash landing or a landing on water.
 

Ediswan

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The main test which double decker buses are subject to is the tilt test, they must be able to achieve 28 degrees from the horizontal without toppling over while fully laden on only the upper deck.
The tilt test:
The assumed average passenger weight may have increased from 10 stone.
 

Inversnecky

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The people sat opposite were travelling forward and were thrown into the seat backs in front. I on the other hand was merely was pressed back into my seat (kind of like going down hill on a roller coaster) and had plenty of time to position my arms to cushion the recoil stop, if and when it came, into the seatback in front of me.
There is an issue potentially, though - if you are safer, backward facing, the personsitting opposite you will be launched in your direction - a bit like the dangers of an unbelted passenger in the rear car seat behind you.

I would say the safest place is the buffet car. To avoid the risk of dieing of thirst !

In the Hatfield crash all the passengers who were killed were in the buffet car, but forget if it was older stock/Mark than the other carriages, besides which, the different design didn’t seem as strong.
 

LowLevel

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There is an issue potentially, though - if you are safer, backward facing, the personsitting opposite you will be launched in your direction - a bit like the dangers of an unbelted passenger in the rear car seat behind you.



In the Hatfield crash all the passengers who were killed were in the buffet car, but forget if it was older stock/Mark than the other carriages, besides which, the different design didn’t seem as strong.

It was a mark 4 and it got wrapped around an overhead line structure and bent pretty much double. Catering vehicles often have issues with corrosion because of things like small leaks from the water system and drains.
 

yorksrob

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There is an issue potentially, though - if you are safer, backward facing, the personsitting opposite you will be launched in your direction - a bit like the dangers of an unbelted passenger in the rear car seat behind you.



In the Hatfield crash all the passengers who were killed were in the buffet car, but forget if it was older stock/Mark than the other carriages, besides which, the different design didn’t seem as strong.

It was a mark 4 and it got wrapped around an overhead line structure and bent pretty much double. Catering vehicles often have issues with corrosion because of things like small leaks from the water system and drains.

My post was somewhat in jest, however given that they're usually in the middle of formations, I suspect that one would probably be marginally safer buffet car than elsewhere. Hatfield was presumably the bad luck of where the stanchion happenned to be.
 

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I suspect the nearest I have ever come to meeting my maker* was one morning on the 0745 Waterloo to Southampton - front 4 - around West Byfleet which we hit at about 80 mph some sleepers which the PW had left in the 4 ft after overnight work - which had gently moved towards the running rails , - so they (the sleepers) catapulted under the full brake application and the train juddered to a very hard stop. In a nice comfy first class compartment , I (a) moved away from the windows (b) propped myself against the soft seats and protected my head.

Within seconds of stopping I went forward to the driver - we blocked all 4 lines - and we recovered the situation with a brevity that would not happen today. Very sobering on reflection as I was convinced we were derailed and about to go down the bank. (and maybe to be hit by other trains) - on reflection , very lucky. Made a few lines in the South Western Division log the next day.


(other issues with trespassers and stolen mail bags -class 50 and 31 involved - but not relevant here)
 

LowLevel

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I suspect the nearest I have ever come to meeting my maker* was one morning on the 0745 Waterloo to Southampton - front 4 - around West Byfleet which we hit at about 80 mph some sleepers which the PW had left in the 4 ft after overnight work - which had gently moved towards the running rails , - so they (the sleepers) catapulted under the full brake application and the train juddered to a very hard stop. In a nice comfy first class compartment , I (a) moved away from the windows (b) propped myself against the soft seats and protected my head.

Within seconds of stopping I went forward to the driver - we blocked all 4 lines - and we recovered the situation with a brevity that would not happen today. Very sobering on reflection as I was convinced we were derailed and about to go down the bank. (and maybe to be hit by other trains) - on reflection , very lucky. Made a few lines in the South Western Division log the next day.


(other issues with trespassers and stolen mail bags -class 50 and 31 involved - but not relevant here)

I think the few seconds where you aren't sure how things are going to end up are the most awful thing.

The only time I've had the "how is this going to end" at work sounded and felt worse than it was when my pair of 153s struck a large tree while I was undertaking a ticket check in the rear coach. Minding my own business then there is a bloody big bang and ballast bouncing off the windows, the passengers screaming, the front coach briefly lifting (the tree went under the wheels and wrapped itself around the bogie) and then the smell of diesel as we ground to a halt. Turned out it had knocked the sight glass off the fuel tank which was weeing everywhere. It was a single line on a former double formation so no real risk of coming to grief at 50 odd mph but still, just for a moment it was awful!
 
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