Re: Curious Statistics

[matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au (Matthew Geier)]

In article <01bf5e91$d5efe1c0$060e65cb@nobody>,
Brendan <nadnerb_2000@NOSPAM.com.au> wrote:
>Cow on track le hamburger yes. Derailment "extremely unlikely" . . . hmmm.
>Cows have big bones. And how did a cow get on the track? what else could?
>
 Cows can derail locomotives. More usually they dont.

>I remind you that the bridge derailment happened after a train hit a car
>that had fallen off it. That could happen anywhere, wheter track is
>conventional or not.

 If you are talking about the German ICE crash (Eschede), it didnt
hit a car.  No car was involved. Look around www.railwaygazette.com
and find a some articles written by a reputable source.
 A wheel failed, the train then split a set of points and subsquently
knocked down a bridge. It was then a case of 'immovable object being
hit by an unstoppable one'. Immovable won.

 It it worth noting that a TGV-PSE had a wheel fail at around 250km/hr
some years earlier when the driver applied the brakes to stop at a
station. Apparently the wheel slide control failed and the brakes locked
the axle. The wheel almost instantly shattered. The only injuries were
passengers waiting on the platform - the damaged bogie was spraying 
balast out sidways.

 If a bus for example lost a wheel while doing 110 on an expressway...
(I belive most large passenger aircraft are infact designed to cope
with the loss of wheel at their critical landing/talkoff phases)

Take a look at
(http://194.203.155.36/archive/jul98com.asp#x1)

>and that doesnt change the fact that Australia's track is highly
>conventional.

 And it also doesnt change the fact that our 'conventional' track
is running at far slower speeds that other 'conventional' tracks.

 On the other hand most 'convention' track with 200Km/hr trains
at the minimum at some sort of ATC, often cab signaling.