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| Re: BREAKING: NJ TRANSIT Train Collides With Wall At Station In Hoboken (1410724) | |||
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Re: BREAKING: NJ TRANSIT Train Collides With Wall At Station In Hoboken |
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Posted by WillD on Fri Sep 30 04:06:58 2016, in response to Re: BREAKING: NJ TRANSIT Train Collides With Wall At Station In Hoboken, posted by Henry R32 #3730 on Thu Sep 29 21:20:45 2016. Also the first car is almost certainly one of the more crowded ones due to proximity to the Hoboken exits;Except that passengers are not permitted to exit from the front of the car, so they were likely at the rear end of the lead car. " If anyone was on the fence about FRA crashworthiness specs, this [blah blah, heavy good, learning lessons bad!]" Absolutely not. How can you possibly make that argument when we've just seen a train depart the track area resulting in a fatality? Regardless of why the train did not stop, it cannot be debated that the bumping block was inadequate to the task of protecting the structure from the train. The car struck and travelled past past the bumping block before striking the structure. Neither the bumping block or the car were designed to absorb any meaningful amount of crash energy without deforming either the railcar's cabin or the station's structure. There could not be a better illustration of the dangers present even at low speeds with the FRA's insistence on absolute structural rigidity. If this was a euro-spec car I suspect that while the people in the station would have fared better, those on the train would have fared far worse. And in the station you have a better chance at dodging an impending calamity than you do on the train, so the tradeoff is better the current way. You suspect wrongly. At most terminal stations in Europe the bumping blocks are equipped to dissipate energy when they're struck by a train. The displacement may be a matter of a few feet, or something a bit more elaborate:  By Kabi - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2829370 This device is claimed to stop an 940 ton train from about 10mph in twenty or so feet. The NJT train involved in this crash was less than half that weight. And in the station you have a better chance at dodging an impending calamity than you do on the train, so the tradeoff is better the current way. There should not have to be a tradeoff either way. While there should be no contact with the bumping block, when needed the bumping block should be something more than a mere speedbump. Similarly the train should be capable of absorbing some of the impact. |
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