Train wreck

For other uses, see Train wreck (disambiguation).

Versailles rail accident in 1842, 55 people were killed including the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville.

Montparnasse derailment, train wreck at Gare Montparnasse, Paris, France, 1895

Wheels from Engine Tender #013 which was destroyed in a wreck in 1907 on a bridge over Village Creek between Silsbee and Beaumont, Texas. The wheels are on display in the Arizona Railway Museum.

A train wreck or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track; or an accident, such as when a train wheel jumps off a track in a derailment; or when a boiler explosion occurs. Train wrecks have often been widely covered in popular media and in folklore.

A head-on collision between two trains is colloquially called a "cornfield meet" in the United States.

See also

• Lists of rail accidents

• List of accidents and disasters by death toll

• Classification of railway accidents

• Boiler explosion
• Bridge disaster
• Derailment
• Level crossing crashes
• Runaway
• Signal passed at danger
• Tram accident
• Wrong-side failure

• The crash at Crush, Texas, an intentional train wreck conducted as a publicity stunt
• Head-on collision
• Railway accident deaths

Further reading

• Aldrich, Mark. Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828-1965 (2006) excerpt

External links

• BBC News: World's worst rail disasters
• A signalman (1874). A voice from the signal-box: or, railway accidents and their causes . London: Longmans, Green, & Co.