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FRA recommends new high speed rail crashworthiness standards
If such a program is successful it will be a great step forward in the future of American passenger rail. The reason many companies have been hesitant in investing in America directly stem from the rigid crashworthiness requirements that most other countries with high speed rail lines (some of which have operated safely for 40+ years without incident) don’t have. It will be a great day if and when these new standards are passed.
Appears they are going to An international standard
About friggin’ time.
I’m not confident it’ll go anywhere, but this is a step in the right direction. And with lower cost, saner, equipment, coupled with existing interest (see the FEC’s AAF) we might see an acceleration in non-government interest in providing passenger rail.
Even a slight glimmer of getting away from 1919 era thinking is good. Guess folks in driver seat clinging to “battle tank” crashworthiness never notice that there are hundreds of thousands of train movements per day in Europe and a extremely low accident rate.
Here’s a thought: get the government out of the railroad business entirely and let them decide for themselves!
Actually the crash worthiness tests would not have to be so stringent if it was not for all the truckers that run grade crossings and try to beat the trains. Next is all the car drivers that are to impatient to wait 45 seconds for a train to go by.
Those engineers(design) better get busy making stuff that the laws of physics don’t apply to.Crash-worthy in a 220 MPH wreck?What planet are these dopes living on?