# 19 Passengers Killed, 120 Injured in Train Derailment in India



## Texan Eagle (May 4, 2014)

A major passenger train derailment in India on the "Konkan Railway" route in the western mountainous region of India has killed 19 passengers and over 120 are injured according to reports. No information available yet on the cause of the derailment.

News report.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 4, 2014)

Ah, that excellent Indian Railways safety record.


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## Texan Eagle (May 4, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Ah, that excellent Indian Railways safety record.


Very classy sir, keep it up. Making sarcastic comments when innocent people have died. Please keep up the same sense of humor if something similar happened to someone close to you.


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## Green Maned Lion (May 4, 2014)

It is an awful, tragic occurrence. I have never been able to feel sorry for people I know only as a number. Maybe that makes me cold hearted, but I don't think so. I have she'd many a tear for people I know and like even vaguely- I feel awful and despondent about Whooz, and said as much.

I can't relate to 19 people I don't know being dead and 120 I don't know being various degrees of hurt. I can relate to Indian Railways having perhaps the worst safety record of any real rail operator in the world, and I commented on it.

I did it sarcastically because I am just a sarcastic person. That's how I am from a cultural standpoint. Frankly, I've never understood the Protestant insistence on being serious. May my friends, and I do have some, sit at my funeral and recall all the laughs we had and laugh about how I'd joke with the devil on my way into hell.


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## Shawn Ryu (May 4, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> It is an awful, tragic occurrence. I have never been able to feel sorry for people I know only as a number. Maybe that makes me cold hearted, but I don't think so. I have she'd many a tear for people I know and like even vaguely- I feel awful and despondent about Whooz, and said as much.
> 
> I can't relate to 19 people I don't know being dead and 120 I don't know being various degrees of hurt. I can relate to Indian Railways having perhaps the worst safety record of any real rail operator in the world, and I commented on it.
> 
> I did it sarcastically because I am just a sarcastic person. That's how I am from a cultural standpoint. Frankly, I've never understood the Protestant insistence on being serious. May my friends, and I do have some, sit at my funeral and recall all the laughs we had and laugh about how I'd joke with the devil on my way into hell.


I know what you mean there, Its easier to feel sad if you can put a face on the dead


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## jis (May 4, 2014)

Here are some pictures:

http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/passenger-train-derails-on-konkan-route-10-feared-dead/#trainderailedphotos-10

Looks like power was a WDM-2 running LHF.


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## George Harris (May 4, 2014)

A few year ago in the midst of some hand wringing about the safety record of the Indian Railway system someone had the audacity to look at it on a per passenger kilometer basis and found that they did better in the realm of safety that Western Europe. When we see such stuff as 19 killed recognize that is an extremely small fatality rate given the huge volume of people moved.


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## the_traveler (May 4, 2014)

That is true. For years the Concorde was the safest plane in the sky - -0- fatalities. With 1 accident 25-30 years later, it became "the most dangerous"!


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## Checks_Statistics (May 5, 2014)

George Harris said:


> A few year ago in the midst of some hand wringing about the safety record of the Indian Railway system someone had the audacity to look at it on a per passenger kilometer basis and found that they did better in the realm of safety that Western Europe. When we see such stuff as 19 killed recognize that is an extremely small fatality rate given the huge volume of people moved.


I can't find the numbers to compare with European trains right now, but it is true that in terms of passenger kilometers, Indian Railways does decent, and of course is orders of magnitude safer than fatalities due to car driving in the US.

In 2013, Indian Railways had 35 passenger deaths (not including pedestrian/trespasser run-overs) on a system that carried 653 Billion passenger-miles, so approximately *0.2** deaths per billion passenger-miles*

As per this article, car accidents resulted in *7.28 deaths per billion passenger-miles*.

Moral- you are about 35 times more likely to die driving your beloved automobile on American roads than riding a train in India. Statistics, statistics.


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## Texan Eagle (May 5, 2014)

Checks_Statistics said:


> In 2013, Indian Railways had 35 passenger deaths (not including pedestrian/trespasser run-overs) on a system that carried 653 Billion passenger-miles, so approximately *0.2** deaths per billion passenger-miles*


The calculation here is a bit off. 35/653 billion comes to *0.05 deaths per billion passenger miles*. That makes the death machine that is Indian Railways about 145 times *less* fatal than US car driving.


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