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Telescoping (rail Cars)
In a railway accident, telescoping occurs when the underframe of one vehicle overrides that of another, and smashes through the second vehicle's body. The term is derived from the resulting appearance of the two vehicle bodies: the body of one vehicle may appear to be slid inside the other like the tubes of a collapsible telescope – the body sides, roof and underframe of the latter vehicle being forced apart from each other. Telescoping often results in heavy fatalities if the cars telescoped are fully occupied. The car riding on top will often be destroyed by the structure of the car below, crushing those on board (although the physics of the incident may reverse the cars' roles). The chances of telescoping can be reduced by use of anticlimbers and other structural systems which direct crash energy and debris away from the passenger and crew areas. Accidents where telescoping occurred are numerous and include: * 1864 Shohola train wreck * 1888 Mud Run disaster * 1928 T ...
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1972 Chicago Commuter Rail Crash
A collision between two commuter trains in Chicago occurred during the cloudy morning rush hour on October 30, 1972, and was the worst such crash in Chicago's history. Illinois Central Gulf Train 416, made up of newly purchased Highliners, overshot the 27th Street station on what is now the Metra Electric Line, and the engineer asked and received permission from the train's conductor to back the train to the platform. This move was then made without the flag protection required by the railroad's rules. The train's crew had not used a flagman before, and while it was a prescribed practice, it had fallen out of use. Instead, the conductor and the engineer worked in concert to back up the train, with the curve in the track partially blocking the view. Train 416 passed the automatic block signals, which cleared express Train 720, made up of more heavily constructed single level cars, to continue at full speed on the same track. The engineer of the express train did not see the bil ...
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Crashworthiness
Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to protect its occupants during an impact. This is commonly tested when investigating the safety of aircraft and vehicles. Depending on the nature of the impact and the vehicle involved, different criteria are used to determine the crashworthiness of the structure. Crashworthiness may be assessed either prospectively, using computer models (e.g., LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH, MSC Dytran, MADYMO) or experiments, or retrospectively by analyzing crash outcomes. Several criteria are used to assess crashworthiness prospectively, including the deformation patterns of the vehicle structure, the acceleration experienced by the vehicle during an impact, and the probability of injury predicted by human body models. Injury probability is defined using criteria, which are mechanical parameters (e.g., force, acceleration, or deformation) that correlate with injury risk. A common injury criterion is the head impact criterion (HIC). Crashworthiness is asse ...
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Buff Strength
Buff strength is a design term used in the certification of passenger railroad cars. It refers to the required resistance to deformation or permanent damage due to loads applied at the car's ends, either from push-or-pull loads on the Buffer (rail transport), buffer, Janney coupler or when rolling at slow speed into a fixed barrier such as a buffer stop. United States Buff strength requirements grew out of best-practice design standards during the latter part of the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, a design limit of was required by federal approval agencies. This was upped to for certain categories in 1945. Federal requirements for buff strength were set in 1999 at for all passenger-carrying units, unless reduced by waivers or special order. The Federal Static and Strength Regulation (49 Code of Federal Regulations § 238.203) requires that a passenger rail car be able to support a longitudinal static compressive load of without permanent deformation. There are o ...
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Anticlimber
A cowcatcher, also known as a pilot, is the device mounted at the front of a locomotive to deflect obstacles on the track that might otherwise damage or derail it or the train. In the UK small metal bars called ''life-guards'', ''rail guards'' or ''guard irons'' are provided immediately in front of the wheels. They knock away smaller obstacles lying directly on the running surface of the railhead. Historically, fenced-off railway systems in Europe relied exclusively on those devices and cowcatchers were not required, but in modern systems cowcatchers have generally superseded them. Instead of a cowcatcher, trams use a device called a fender. Objects lying on the tram track come in contact with a sensor bracket, which triggers the lowering of a basket-shaped device to the ground, preventing the overrunning of the obstacles and dragging them along the road surface in front of the wheels. In snowy areas the cowcatcher also has the function of a snowplough. Invention The cowca ...
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1898 St Johns Rail Accident
The St Johns train crash happened at 9 am on 21 March 1898 when, in thick fog, a passenger train waiting to enter St Johns Station on the South Eastern Railway, UK was run into by another passenger train. Three people were killed and about 20 injured in the accident, which was caused by a signalman's error. Background to the accident St Johns railway station is on the South Eastern Railway main line as it approaches London, with the tracks running roughly east–west (London). At St Johns the main line was four tracks and the station had three platforms with St Johns signal cabin at the west end of the station. The adjacent signal cabins were Parks Bridge Junction, to the east, and New Cross No. 2, to the west. The line was equipped with Sykes "lock and block" interlocking, which prevented signalmen allowing a second train onto a section before the previous train had left. The interlocking was normally released by trains passing over track treadles as they entered t ...
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Clarín (Argentine Newspaper)
''Clarín'' (, meaning "Bugle"), is the largest newspaper in Argentina and the second most circulated in the Spanish-speaking world. It was founded by Roberto Noble in 1945, published by the Clarín Group. For many years, its director was Ernestina Herrera de Noble, the founder's wife. ''Clarín'' is part of ''Periódicos Asociados Latinoamericanos'' (Latin American Newspaper Association), an organization of fourteen leading newspapers in South America. History ''Clarín'' was created by Roberto Noble, former minister of the Buenos Aires Province, on 28 August 1945. It was one of the first Argentine newspapers published in tabloid format. It became the highest sold Argentine newspaper in 1965, and the highest sold Spanish-speaking newspaper in 1985. It was also the first Argentine newspaper to sell a magazine with the Sunday edition, since 1967. In 1969, the news were split into several supplements by topic. In 1976, high color printing was benefited by the creation of Artes ...
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2012 Buenos Aires Rail Disaster
The 2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster, also known as the Once Tragedy, occurred on 22 February 2012, when a train crashed at Once Station ( es, link=no, Estación Once de Septiembre; ) in the Balvanera neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. There were about 1,000 passengers on board when the crowded eight-carriage train, whose working brakes were not activated, hit the buffers at the end of the line, crushing the motor carriage and the following two carriages, after approaching the station at a speed of . Fifty-one people were killed and more than 700 were injured; the dead and seriously injured were in the first two carriages, which were packed with people who had moved to the front of the train to be near the station exit on arrival. The Sarmiento Line, on which the incident occurred, was operated by Trenes de Buenos Aires (TBA), owned by the Cirigliano brothers. It was the second fatal accident on the line within six months, following the 2011 Flores rail crash, and the th ...
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June 2009 Washington Metro Train Collision
During the afternoon rush hour of June 22, 2009, a subway train wreck occurred between two southbound Red Line Washington Metro trains in Northeast, Washington, D.C., United States. A moving train collided with a train stopped ahead of it; the train operator along with eight passengers died, and 80 people were injured, making it the deadliest crash in the history of the Washington Metro. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that after a June 17 replacement of a track circuit component at what became the crash site, the track circuit had been suffering from parasitic oscillations which left it unable to reliably report when that stretch of track was occupied by a train. The struck train came to a stop because of traffic ahead. Because the entire train was within the faulty circuit, it became invisible to the Automatic Train Control (ATC) system. The train behind it was therefore commanded to proceed at . The operator of the striking train appli ...
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2008 Chatsworth Train Collision
The 2008 Chatsworth train collision occurred at 4:22:23 p.m. PDT (23:22:23 UTC) on September 12, 2008, when a Union Pacific freight train and a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. The scene of the accident was a curved section of single track on the Metrolink Ventura County Line just east of Stoney Point. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the cause of the collision, the Metrolink train ran through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The NTSB blamed the Metrolink train's engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, for the collision, concluding that he was distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty. This mass casualty event brought a massive emergency response by both the city and county of Los Angeles, but the nature and e ...
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Ursus Rail Crash
Ursus rail crash (''Polish:'' ''Katastrofa kolejowa w Ursusie'') was a major accident, which occurred at 6:20 a.m. on 20 August 1990 near the Warszawa Ursus railway station on the western part of Polish capital in which 16 people died and 43 were injured. Accident At 6:20 am, InterExpress no. 41008 ''Silesia '' from Praha hl.n. to Warszawa Wschodnia ran into the last carriage of train no. 6114 from Szklarska Poręba to Warszawa Wschodnia; there was a mist with very low visibility. The train from Szklarska was travelling at 12 mph (17 km/h) while InterExpress ''Silesia'' (with Tadeusz Mościcki as its driver) was travelling at nearly 75 mph (120 km/h). From circa 80 passengers travelling in the last carriage of Szklarska's train, telescoped by ''Silesia'' locomotive, 15 were killed at the moment of collision and one gravely injured person died later in hospital. 43 people were injured. Investigation and aftermath Two commissions: one from Scientif ...
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Seer Green Rail Crash
The Seer Green rail crash occurred on the morning of 11 December 1981 near Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, England between two four-car Class 115 diesel multiple units, killing one driver and three passengers. Events In the winter of 1981, the weather in Southern England turned cold and there were frequent heavy falls of snow. On the Chiltern Main Line, the snow caused tree branches in the cutting at Seer Green to be weighed down and some of them were brushed by passing trains. On 11 December, the driver of an empty train from Marylebone to Princes Risborough came across a fallen branch lying across the track. He telephoned the signalman at High Wycombe to tell him that he was going to clear the obstruction and would be delayed by a few minutes. Meanwhile, at Gerrards Cross, behind the stationary train, the driver of the 07:31 from Marylebone to Banbury was being cautioned by the signalman about the overhanging branches. The signalman then attempted to clear the starting signal ...
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