While we like to play with trains and study the real ones accidents happen in the real world. Unfortunately a Metro train in Washington DC slammed into the back of a stopped train today about 5 pm. This photo shows the classic telescoping of one train into another.
I use to have to go to DC every quarter for business meetings, the Metro was a great way to get around the city and back & forth to Reagan National. I was always concerned about end of train collisions and always got on the train at mid-train, seemed to be the safest place.
The DC Metro accident is a tragedy! From what I heard on the news here in south Florida 6 people died at the scene.
Just hope that there was no engineer error involved like in the California accident a few months back, the engineer was text messaging and missed seeing a red signal!
Lee F.
Something went teriibly wrong there yesterday. For modern cars like that to “telescope” the on-coming train had to be going at a crazy rate of speed. Telescoping was one of the key reasons why passenger cars could no longer be made of wood. Like most subway systems the DC Metro has an automatic speed control and breaking system, so needless to say the sytem failed big time. Our thoughts go out to the deceased, who had every right to plan on just another ride home. Ken