North Dakota town to commemorate 1945 Empire Builder wreck

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1

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North Dakota town to commemorate 1945 Empire Builder wreck

2

Almost 67 years later railroads are being required to install PTC, but as I understand the technology, even PTC would not prevent a disaster such as this since it cannot detect the rear of a train.

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Thanks to the good people of Michigan ND for a job well done. Though its been 2 or 3 generations since that accident, I’ll assume the same result would prevail.

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This is an example of how major accidents can be overshadowed by national or world events. On the same date, Aug. 9, 1945, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, as World War II reached its cataclysmic conclusion. Few today have heard of the sinking of the Sultana on the Mississippi that killed more than the Titanic, because it was overshadowed by other events in April 1865. Michigan is between Grand Forks and Surrey, N.D., on a line now used only by Amtrak for through service.