List of rail accidents (pre-1950)

For a list of 1950-1999 rail accidents, see List of 1950-1999 rail accidents.For a list of post-2000 rail accidents, see List of rail accidents.__notoc__

Pre 1830

1815

* 1815, exact date unclear – Philadelphia, Co Durham, England: 16 people, mainly spectators, killed by the boiler explosion of the experimental locomotive "Brunton's Mechanical Traveller".

1830s

1830

* September 15, 1830 – Newton-le-willows, England: William Huskisson becomes first passenger train death. Killed by Stephenson's Rocket at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
* December 1830 – Maryland, United States: On the Baltimore & Ohio the driver of a crowded horse-drawn coach falls from his seat and is killed beneath the wheels, the first fatal accident on a railroad in the US.

1831

* June 17, 1831 – Charleston, South Carolina, United States: After the pressure safety valve is tied down by one of the train's crew, the "Best Friend of Charleston" suffers a boiler explosion killing the crew. The locomotive was the first engine of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company.

1832

* July 25, 1832 – Quincy, Massachusetts, United States: A cable snaps on an incline of the Granite Railway, killing one tourist from Cuba and injuring three other visitors to the railway.

1833

* November 11, 1833 – Hightstown, New Jersey, United States: Carriages of a Camden & Amboy train derail at 25 miles per hour in the New Jersey countryside between Spotswood and Hightstown when an axle breaks on a car due to an overheated journal. One car overturns, killing two and injuring fifteen. Among the survivors is Cornelius Vanderbilt who will later head the New York Central Railroad. He suffers two cracked ribs and a punctured lung, and spends a month recovering from the injuries. Uninjured in the coach ahead is former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, who continues on to the Nation's Capital the next day.

1837

* August 11, 1837 – Suffolk, Virginia, United States: First head-on collision to result in passenger fatalities occurs on the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad near Suffolk when an eastbound lumber train coming down a grade at speed rounds a sharp curve and smacks into the morning passenger train from Portsmouth, Virginia. First three of thirteen stagecoach-style cars are smashed, killing three daughters of the prominent Ely family and injuring dozens of the 200 on board. They were returning from a steamboat cruise when the accident happened. An engraving depicting the moment of impact is published in Howland's "Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents" in 1840.

1838

* August 7, 1838 – Harrow, Middlesex, England: From a memorial in the parish churchyard of Harrow-on-the-Hill, "To the memory of Thomas Port, son of John Port of Burton-upon-Trent in the County of Stafford, Hat Manufacturer, who near this town had both legs severed from his body by the railway train. With great fortitude he bore a second amputation by the surgeons and died from loss of blood, August 7th 1838, aged 33 years."

1840s

1840

* August 7, 1840 – Howden rail crash, England: five passengers killed when casting fell from wagon and derailed carriages.

1841

* December 24, 1841 – Sonning Cutting, England: nine passengers killed and seventeen injured when a Paddington to Bristol train ran into a landslide caused by heavy rain. The extent of the casualties in this accident called into question the practice of mixing passenger and freight wagons in fast trains. The dead were stone masons travelling in open wagons, so had no protection from either accidents or the weather, and the accident led to a public outcry, and new legislation which insisted on better carriages for passengers.

1842

* May 8, 1842 – Meudon (Versailles), France: During the inauguration ceremonies of the Paris to Saint-Germain railway, a returning train caught fire at Meudon after the locomotive broke an axle and the train derailed. 55 passengers were killed trapped in the carriages, including the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville. This led to the abandonment of the then-common practice of locking passengers in their carriages in France. This was the first really major world railway disaster, usually referred to as the Versailles train crash.

1844

* November 21, 1844 – Beeston, Nottinghamshire, England: Midland Railway Two trains collided in thick fog. Two people died shortly afterwards from their injuries. Between 15 and 20 other persons were injured.

1847

* May 24, 1847 – Chester, England: Five passengers killed and many injured when a Chester to Ruabon train crashed convert|36|ft|m into the River Dee following the collapse of a bridge. One of the girders carrying train had cracked in the middle and gave way, with most of the train ending up in the river below. The engine and tender managed to reach the other side of the bridge. The accident is important because the bridge was engineered by Robert Stephenson, and his reputation was questioned. The Dee bridge disaster led to a re-evaluation of the use of cast-iron in railway bridges, and many new bridges had to be demolished or reinforced.

1850s

1851

* April 30 1851 – Sutton Tunnel, Cheshire, England: Two trains returning from the Chester Cup horse race lost adhesion in the tunnel and a third train crashed into the rear of the second train, killing nine people and injuring 30–40.

1853

* January 6, 1853 – Andover, Massachusetts, United States: The Boston & Maine noon express, traveling from Boston to Lawrence, Massachusetts, derails at forty miles an hour when an axle breaks at Andover, and the only coach goes down an embankment and breaks in two. Only one is killed, the twelve-year-old son of President-elect Franklin Pierce, but it is initially reported that Pierce is also a fatality. He was on board but is only badly bruised. The baggage car and the locomotive remain on the track. President Pierce's inaugural ball is cancelled as the family grieves over the loss of their son.
* March 4, 1853 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
* April 16 1853 – Cheat River, West Virginia, United States: Two Baltimore & Ohio passenger cars tumble down a hundred foot ravine above the Cheat River in West Virginia, west of Cumberland, Maryland, after they are derailed by a loose rail.
* April 23, 1853 – Rancocas Creek, New Jersey: Engineer of Camden & Amboy's 2 p.m. train out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania misses stop signals and runs his train off of an open drawspan at Rancocas Creek. Fortunately, there are no fatalities.
* April 25, 1853 – Chicago, Illinois, United States: An eastbound Michigan Central Railroad express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a Michigan Southern Railroad emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
* May 6, 1853 – Norwalk, Connecticut, United States: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a New Haven Railroad engineer neglects to check for open drawbridge signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely wounded.
* May 9, 1853 – Secaucus, New Jersey, United States: A Paterson & Hudson River Railroad emigrant train has a with an Erie Railroad express in Hackensack Meadow near Secaucus, killing two brakemen, but no passengers.
* August 12, 1853 – Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States: Thirteen passengers are killed and fifty injured in a head-on collision on the main line of the Boston & Worcester between a seven-car excursion train with 475 on board, bound for Narragansett Bay via Providence, and a two-car train bound from Providence to Worcester. They collide at the Valley Falls station, near Pawtucket. Believed to be the earliest wreck photographed, with the daguerreotype taken by a Mr. L. Wright of Pawtucket forming the basis for an engraving a fortnight later in the "New York Illustrated News".
* 5 October 1853 –Straffan, Ireland; 16 killed after a rear-end collision when a train breaks down and the crew were accused of neglecting to place any warning signals to the rear.
* December 1853 – Secaucus, New Jersey, United States: The same two trains that crashed on May 9, 1853, a Paterson & Hudson River Railroad emigrant train and an Erie Railroad express, collide again, within one mile (1.6 km) of last spring's wreck site near Secaucus. A brakeman and one passenger die, 24 others are injured.

1854

* - October 27 - A Great Western Railway passenger train collides with the tail end of gravel train at Baptiste Creek, Canada West. At least 52 people are killed.

1855

* November 1, 1855 – Gasconade, Missouri, United States: With more than 600 passengers aboard a Missouri Pacific Railroad excursion train celebrating the railway line's opening, a bridge collapsed above the Gasconade River, and the locomotive plus 12 of the 13 attached cars plunged into the water and embankment below. 31 people died and hundreds were seriously injured. Known as the Gasconade Bridge train disaster.
* December 15 1855 – Massachusetts/New Hampshire, United States: The locomotive Dewitt Clinton, the third built in the United States, exploded on the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, killing the engineer and fireman. [ cite book | author = Frank Leslie |title = Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (1855-1922) (reprint) ]

1856

* July 17, 1856 – Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, United States: In one of the most infamous train wrecks to ever occur in the USA, two North Pennsylvania Railroad trains collided. One train was carrying 1,500 Sunday School children enroute to a picnic. Upon impact, the boiler of the passenger train exploded and the train carrying the children derailed. 59 were instantly killed, and dozens more died from their injuries. The conductor of the passenger train committed suicide the same day, although he was later absolved of any responsibility. Also known as The Great Train Wreck of 1856.

1857

* March 12, 1857 – Desjardins Canal, Canada West: Ninety passengers boarded a Great Western Railway train from Toronto en route to Hamilton. As the train approached its destination, the bridge spanning the Desjardins Canal collapsed as the train derailed. 70 passengers died from trauma or drowning and exposure after being thrown into Cootes Paradise.

1858

*/flagicon|New York May 11, 1858 – Utica, New York, United States: Two New York Central trains, a westbound freight and the eastbound "Cincinnati Express", pass on a forty-foot wood trestle over Sauquoit Creek, three miles (5 km) from Utica. It collapses under their weight, utterly destroying the passenger consist, killing nine and injuring 55.
*/ flagicon|UK August 23, 1858 – near Round Oak railway station, Stourbridge, England: Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. Part of a passenger train ran away downhill after a coupling failure and collided with a following passenger train. Fourteen fatalities, 50 serious injuries, 170 minor injuries.

1859

* June 28, 1859 – Mishawaka, Indiana United States: Eastbound Lake Shore and Michigan Southern express breaks through rain-weakened Springbrook bridge late at night, with locomotive and two day coaches smashing into the mudbank thirty feet below. Following sleeper is not destroyed, but 41 die in the wreck.

1860s

1861

* June 11, 1861 – Two were killed in the Wooton Bridge Collapse, when a bridge near Kenilworth collapsed onto a roadway as a goods train passed over it.
* August 25, 1861 – Clayton Tunnel rail crash, Brighton, Sussex; combination of faulty equipment and signalmen's errors result in collision in railway tunnel. 23 killed, 176 injured in a densely-packed excursion train.

1863

* February 19, 1863 – Chunky Creek Train Wreck of 1863: A Mississippi Southern train was headed for the battlefield at Vicksburg where the Confederate forces were in desperate need for reinforcements in the defense of the city against the assault of Sherman and the Union Army.

1864

* June 29, 1864 – Beloeil, Canada East: 99 killed when an immigrant train failed to stop at an open swing bridge and fell into the Richelieu River. May also be called St-Hilaire train disaster. To this day, October 22nd 2007, this stands as the rail accident with the largest death toll in Canada.

1865

* June 9, 1865 – Staplehurst rail crash, United Kingdom: train falls into stream after track workers had removed rail after misreading timetable, 10 killed, 49 injured, Charles Dickens is amongst the survivors.

1867

* December 18, 1867 – Angola, New York, United States: The Angola Horror - The Buffalo-bound "New York Express" of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern derails its last coach, due to poor track maintenance, and it plunges forty feet off a truss bridge into Big Sister Creek just after departing Angola. The next car is also pulled from the track and rolls down the far embankment. Stoves set both coaches afire and fifty are killed - three manage to crawl from the wreckage. Forty more are injured. The train actually continues for some distance before the crew realizes an accident has happened. {One reference reports 44 were killed. See [http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/wkbkch02.Html] }.

1868

* August 20, 1868 - Abergele train disaster, Denbighshire, Wales: passenger train collides with runaway goods wagons and their load of paraffin explodes. Thirty-three dead, engine driver badly burned.

1870s

1871

*flagicon|United States February 6, 1871 – Wappinger's Creek, New Hamburg, New York, United States: A passenger train strikes the rear of a stalled Oil train on a railroad drawbridge. 21 killed.
* August 26, 1871 – Revere, Massachusetts, United States: A series of dispatching errors allow the "Portland Express" to collide with the rear of a stalled local train at Revere on the Eastern Railroad, telescoping the rear cars of the stopped consist. Coal-oil lamps ignite the wreckage and 29 die while 57 are injured. Several prominent Boston citizens are killed bringing much national publicity to the accident.

1873

* April 19, 1873 – Wood River Junction (formerly Richmond Switch), Rhode Island: the Wood River Branch of the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad train-bridge washout and fire of passenger cars; 11 killed/22 injured, with some bodies swept downstream and unaccounted for.

1874

* September 10, 1874 – Thorpe, Norfolk, England: Head-on collision on single line track, in which 25 were killed and more than 100 injured. The cause was administrative error which led to both trains being given permission to run in opposite directions at the same time. The accident led directly to the introduction of automatic control systems to manage traffic on single-track railways.

1875

* November 16, 1875 – Lagerlunda, Östergötland: Unclear signalling between a station master and a steam engine driver leads to a train leaving the station although another train is approaching on the single line track. 9 people were killed in the head-on collision shortly after. The station master was sentenced to 6 months of prison. [cite book |last= Bengtsson |first= Bengt-Arne |title= Från Östra stambanan till Ostlänken/Götalandsbanan |publisher= Atremi| location= Mjölby |language= Swedish |year= 2007 |pages= 213-215|isbn= 978-91-85487-63-9 ]

1876

* January 21, 1876 – Abbots Ripton rail disaster, Cambridgeshire, England: Icy conditions cause signals to jam in clear position when they were set at danger. Thirteen passengers lost their lives in the collisions while 53 passengers and 6 crew members were injured.
* August 7, 1876 – Radstock rail accident, Somerset, England: Catalogue of errors on mismanaged line result in head-on collision on single line. Fifteen passengers killed.
* December 26, 1876 – Hansted, Denmark: The two locomotives in a snow plough train separate under unclear circumstances and crash, killing nine locomotive crew and injuring 26 workmen.
* December 29, 1876 – Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, Ashtabula, Ohio, United States: As Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Train No. 5, "The Pacific Express," crosses the Ashtabula River bridge, the Howe truss structure collapses, dropping second locomotive of two and 11 passenger cars into the frozen creek convert|70|ft|m below. A fire is started by the car stoves, and of the 159 people onboard, 64 are injured and 92 killed.

1878

* January 14, 1878 – Tariffville, Connecticut, United States: A double-headed ten-car Connecticut Western Railroad special train of the faithful, returning from a revival held in Hartford, crosses the Tariffville Bridge over the Farmington River near midnight, and the structure collapses. Both locomotives and the first four cars plunge into the ice-covered river, killing seventeen and injuring 43.
*flagicon|Australia January 30 1878 – Emu Plains, New South Wales, Australia: Two goods trains collide at Emu Plains when the guard of the train heading east went down the Lapstone Zig Zag instead of waiting for the train from Penrith to come up first. Five people were killed.

1879

* December 28, 1879 – Scotland: The Tay Rail Bridge collapses in a violent storm while a train is crossing it. Seventy-five lives are lost (estimate-60 victims' names are known of whom about 46 remains were recovered). The subsequent investigation concludes that "the bridge was badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained" and lays the major blame on the designer, Sir Thomas Bouch. William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem "The Tay Bridge Disaster" to commemorate the event. It is the worst ever train disaster to date, and shocks engineers into creating an improved crossing both on the Tay, as well as the famous Forth bridge.

1880s

1881

* July 6, 1881 – Boone, Iowa, United States: A Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive runs tender-first, westbound over the line out of Boone to check the tracks during a heavy summer rainstorm in the Des Moines River Valley and plunges into Honey Creek as the weakened bridge collapses. Spunky, Irish-born, seventeen-year-old Kate Shelley, who lives close by the accident site, realizes that the late night eastbound express coming from Moingona, a mile to the west, has to be flagged down, lest it pile into gap at Honey Creek. To reach the station, she must cross the long bridge over the Des Moines River in the storm. Arriving at the depot, she relates what she has seen, and the express train is halted. She then accompanies the rescue train to the failed bridge and helps locate the surviving engine crew, two of whom had survived the 25 foot plunge into the flood and who have found refuge above the waters on tree limbs. For her part in keeping a small accident from becoming much worse, Kate Shelley becomes a national folk heroine. The new bridge over the Des Moines River is named in her honor as the 'Kate Shelley High Bridge'. As of mid-2007, the bridge is due to be replaced by a new structure capable of higher capacity and speed by the Union Pacific which absorbed the Chicago & Northwestern. The old alignment may become a road bridge.

1882

* January 13, 1882 – Spuyten Duyvil, New York, United States: Hudson River Railroad's "Tarrytown Special" collides with rear of the halted "Atlantic Express" near Spuyten Duyvil at night, telescoping the last two coaches which also catch fire. "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper" publishes full front-page engraving on January 21, 1882 showing trainmen, passengers, and local farmers rolling giant snowballs in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. State Senator and sleeping car magnate Webster Wagner was among the dead.
* September 3 1882; Hugstetten, Germany: After heavy weather the rail became washed out and the train most probably was running too fast. About 180 people killed.

1883

* January 20, 1883 – Tehachapi Pass, California Passenger cars runaway on pass and crash. Among those believed killed is the wife of ex-California Governor John G. Downey.

1884

* July 16, 1884 – Penistone rail crash, Penistone, United Kingdom: Locomotive axle failure causes derailment of passenger train. Twenty-four passengers killed.
* October 17, 1884 – Batavia, Ohio, United States: A railroad bridge over the Little Miami River collapses under weight of a passing train, dropping the locomotive, a baggage car and the first coach some forty feet to the ground at the water's edge. The last coach snags on the bridge structure and teeters precariously but passengers in the last car escape harm.

1887

* January 4, 1887 – Republic, Ohio, United States: A westbound Baltimore & Ohio passenger express train hits a stalled eastbound freight which was supposed to have taken a siding for it to pass, on a bitterly cold night, one half mile west of Republic. The forward cars of the express telescope and then burn completely, the last two sleepers are spared. The exact count of fatalities remains unknown but at least nine victims who perish in the fire are counted.
* February 5, 1887 – Hartford, Vermont, United States; Worst rail accident in Vermont history when the Central Vermont "Montreal Express" goes off the White River bridge at White River Junction at 2 a.m. on a bitter winter night; 38 are killed and 40 injured.
* March 14, 1887 – West Roxbury, Massachusetts, United States: "The Forest Hills Disaster"; also, "The Forest Ridge Disaster" - A morning Boston & Providence Railroad train, inbound to Boston, is passing over the "Tin Bridge", a Howe truss, at Bussey Street in the Roslindale section of West Roxbury when it collapses, killing twenty-three commuters and school children and injuring several hundred. Bridge design was found to be faulty.
* August 10-August 11 1887 – The Great Chatsworth Train Wreck in Chatsworth, Illinois, United States: Fifteen car train of fully-occupied Pullman sleepers and coaches on the Toledo, Peoria and Western bound for Niagara Falls, comes to a wooden trestle over a shallow "run" just before midnight; the engineer sees that it is on fire too late to stop the double-headed train from crossing the weakened structure and the consist with over 600 on board crashes to a stop as the lead engine collapses it. The cars in the front half telescope into one another and some 84 are killed with injuries estimated at 279. This accident inspires morbid ballad "The Chatsworth Wreck" that includes the verse, "the dead and dying mingled with the broken beams and bars; an awful human carnage, a dreadful wreck of cars."
* August 17, 1887 – Washington, D.C., United States: Baltimore & Ohio "Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Express" enters the city from Maryland, out of control. At sixty miles an hour it derails on curve at Terracotta, demolishing several buildings as well as the train set. The engineer had been trying to make up time when he discovered that his brakes had failed. The engineer is killed and many passengers injured.

1888

* March 17, 1888 – Blackshear, Georgia, United States: Most of the "West India Fast Mail Train" from New York to Jacksonville is wrecked when two-thirds of a 300 foot long, 25 foot high trestle collapses. The accident is caused by a broken rail under the lead baggage car, which gets off the track. The train safely crosses the bridge over the Hurricane River, but at about 9:30 a.m. the baggage car suddenly whirls over and strikes the subsequent trestle, which gives way. All but the detached engine tumbles below -- a combination car, 3 baggage cars, a smoking car, a coach, 2 Pullman sleepers, and the private car of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Killed are 20, with 35 injured. Among the latter is Elisha P. Wilbur, president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, who together with members of his family and friends was traveling in the private car. George Gould and his wife escape serious injury. The engine runs into town for help.

* October 10, 1888 – Mud Run, Pennsylvania, United States: Following a mass meeting held by the Total Abstinence Union in the Pennsylvania mountains at Hazelton, in which eight special temperance trains are operated from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by the Lehigh Valley Railroad carrying some 5,000 conventioneers, the consists are directed to keep a ten-minute interval between them upon return. At about 8 p.m., the sixth train with 500 on board stops near Mud Run along the banks of the Lehigh River and shortly thereafter the following section plows into it, telescoping the last car of the stopped train halfway through the coach ahead, killing 64 of the 200 in these two wooden cars outright. Another 100 are injured. Newspaper accounts suggest that temperance pledges were forgotten by some of the victims after they returned to the train.
* October 17, 1888 – Borki, Kharkov province, Russian Empire: In 1888, the Imperial train crashed near Borki in Kharkov Province. The popular story says that tsar held up the mangled roof of the carriage, so that his family could escape from the wreckage. The story could easly be truthfull because Alexander Romanov was a very big and strong russian man. In doing so, he damaged his kidneys. The imperial train was de-railed due to high speed. Alexander sustained a massive impact trauma to his back but was apparently not affected in any other way. In the accident were not any victims, but Alexander III ordered to build two new trains — one for travels abroad and one for travels within Russia.

1889

* May 12, 1889 – Seattle, Washington, a street car descending Denny Hill suffers a cable malfunction and crashed after hitting a sharp curve. The crash killed one passenger and injured another. The crash marked the first street car fatality in the history of Seattle. [ [http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3283 HistoryLink Essay: Streetcar accident results in fatality, first of the kind in Seattle, on May 12, 1889 ] ]

* June 12, 1889 – The Armagh rail disaster occurs near Armagh, Ireland: runaway carriages collided with a following train, killing 88, and spurring the Parliament of the United Kingdom to pass the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, mandating improved brake and signal systems.

1890s

1890

* November 11, 1890 – Norton Fitzwarren, England: A passenger train collides with a goods train that had been shunted onto the main line - the signalman had forgotten that the line was obstructed. Ten people killed, eleven seriously injured.

1891

* April 19, 1891 – Kipton, Ohio, United States: A passenger train and a freight train collide just east of the Kipton depot, 8 dead. This accident was attributed to one of the engineers' watches having stopped and being four minutes behind. Webster C. Ball, watch dealer and inspector of Cleveland, Ohio is later appointed as Watch Inspector for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad.
* June 14, 1891 – Munchenstein, Basle, Switzerland: An iron girder bridge collapses as a crowded passenger train passes over it, 71 dead, 171 injured. Switzerland's worst ever railway accident.
* December 4, 1891 – East Thompson, Connecticut, United States: Four trains collide on the New York and New England Railroad. Two freight trains collide due to sloppy dispatching, jack-knifing several cars. The "Long Island & Eastern States Express" passenger train then hits the wreckage, killing the engineer and fireman. Shortly thereafter, despite an attempt to flag it down, the "Norwich Steamboat Express" also piles into the rear of the "Eastern States Express", setting the last sleeper on fire as well as the locomotive cab although both engine crew survive. In all, only two deaths are confirmed although the body of one passenger is never found and presumed dead. See Great East Thompson Train Wreck.

1892

* September 9, 1892 – Lander, California, United States: Head-on collision between Southern Pacific passenger train and a freight train of refrigerator cars leaves locomotives stacked up on one another.
* November 2, 1892 – Thirsk rail crash, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England: a distressed signalman forgets about a goods train standing outside his signal box. Eight people killed, 39 injured.

1895

* October 23, 1895 – Gare Montparnasse, Paris, France: a local train overruns a buffer stop due to Westinghouse air brake failure and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window. One person killed in the shop below.

1896

* Easter Monday, April 6, 1896 – Llanberis, Wales: On the opening day of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, locomotive No. 1 "Ladas" runs away and derails before plummeting down a steep slope where it is destroyed. The driver and fireman jumped clear and the carriages were stopped by the guard. One passenger jumped off the moving train and fell beneath the wheels. He later died from his injuries. The line then closed for over a year before re-opening on April 19 1897.
*flagicon|United States July 30,1896: 1896 Atlantic City rail crash - two trains collide at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring around 60.
*flagicon|United States September 15,1896: The Crash at Crush - Showman William George Crush convinces officials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT, known as "the Katy"), to let him stage a colossal train wreck for a crowd that will ride to the site near the town of West, Texas, producing much passenger revenue for the company. A one-day town is thrown up and named Crush, boasting a 2,100 foot platform and tank cars supplying 100 faucets. Two six-car trains of obsolete rolling stock, pulled by dolled-up locomotives are let loose at each other over a one-mile (1.6 km) course with spectacular result. When the wrecked engines' boilers explode, flying shrapnel kills at least three of the 30,000 spectators (some sources estimate 40,000) and injures many more.

1897

* May 13, 1897 – A military train derails in Puka, Estonia. 61 people are killed in the accident.
* June 11, 1897 – Gentofte train crash, Denmark: An express train passes a signal at danger and collides with a stationary passenger train at Gentofte station. 40 die and more than 100 are injured.

1899

* September, 1899 - St. Louis & San Francisco (Frisco) train crashes head-on into another train. A number of deaths.

1900s

1900

* April 30, 1900 – Vaughan, Mississippi, United States: Illinois Central passenger train No. 1, the "Cannonball", crashes into the rear of freight train No. 83 which is fouling the main line out of a siding at 3:52 a.m. on the Water Valley District of the Mississippi Division. Engineer of 2-6-0 Mogul No. 382, John Luther "Casey" Jones, the only fatality, is found to be solely at fault by the ensuing investigation for having disregarded safety warnings behind the stalled train. The accident spawns the vastly popular "Ballad of Casey Jones" by roundhouse worker and friend of the deceased, Wallace Saunders, and the root theme for a Grateful Dead song titled "Casey Jones".
* May 22, 1900 – Oakland, California, United States: Southern Pacific passenger local is mistakenly switched into a narrow gauge track. The iron rail curls up beneath the locomotive, flipping it over and killing the engineer and fireman. The engineer, Frank Shaw, is last seen shutting down the locomotive’s steam and is credited with saving the lives of the passengers, none of whom are killed or seriously injured.
* August 13, 1900 – Gwynn's Falls, Maryland, United States: Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive and tender are knocked off the Carrollton Viaduct at Gwynn's Falls by a side-strike and land inverted in the stream below.
* September 2, 1900 – Hatfield, Pennsylvania, United States: Going from Souderton to Philadelphia, a milk train collided with an excursion train, killing 13 people and injuring 45.

1902

* January 8, 1902 – New York City, New York, United States: A stopped New Haven express train from South Norwalk is rear-ended in the Park Avenue tunnel by a New York Central White Plains local, due to smoke and snow obscuring signals. Fifteen persons were killed and 36 injured. The accident inspired the State Legislature to pass a law the next year prohibiting steam operation on the Park Avenue line south of the Harlem River.
* 1902 – Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Serious buffer stop collision inspires development of Rawie range of energy-absorbing buffer stops.

1903

* August 10, 1903 – Paris Métro train fire, France: electric fire at the Paris Métro Couronnes station, 84 killed. This led to the design of low-voltage control circuit for electric multiple-unit cars and better lighting in the Métro stations.
* is sometimes cited as the American recording industry's first million-seller.

* campus to honor the memory of those who perished.

1904

* February 9, 1904 - Sand Point, Ontario head-on collision; 13 killed & 19 injured.
* August 7, 1904 – Eden, Colorado, United States: Train caught in bridge washout; 97 known dead; 14 missing
* September 24 1904 – Morristown, Tennessee, United States: Two Southern Railway passenger trains, the "Carolina Special" and Local train No. 15, collide head-on near New Market, Tennessee near Hodges when the crew of the local, a three-car consist, fails to take the siding to allow the "Carolina Special" to pass. The impact knocks the boilers off of both locomotives and the engine on the local is catapulted onto the first three wooden coaches of the "Special". The impact causes the boilers of both locomotives to explode and the cars of the local passenger train to telescope. The reason that the crew of the local failed to follow orders for the meet is determined to be human error, as the conductor of the local admits that he forgot that the dispatcher at Morristown had moved the meeting point of the trains from New Market to Hodges. At least 64 killed.
* October 10, 1904 - Warrensburg, Missouri, United States: An eastbound Missouri Pacific Railroad passenger train, en route to the St. Louis World's Fair, collides head-on with a freight train. Thirty people are killed.
* December 23, 1904 - Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom. Derailment. The 0245, Great Central Railway express from London Marylebone to Manchester derailed as it approached Aylesbury from the south, approximately at the location of the junction with the Great Western Railway branch from Princes Risborough. Its speed carried the wreckage along the platforms of the station, and six of those on board the train, including the driver and fireman, were killed. Four others were injured. A southbound train, ex Manchester, then collided with the wreckage at low-speed.

1905

* July 27, 1905 – Rail crash Hall Road Crosby on Liverpool, Lancashire to Southport line.

* September 1 1905 – Derailment at Witham, Essex. 11 killed and 50 injured.

1906

* June 30, 1906 – Salisbury rail crash, Salisbury, England: Racing express train derails, then collides with a milk train on a sharp curve, 28 killed (24 passengers, 4 crew).
* September 19, 1906 – Grantham rail accident, Grantham, England: Evening sleeping-car and mail train from London to Edinburgh derailed, no definite cause ever established, 14 killed.
* September 21, 1906 – Napanee, Ontario, Canada: A Grand Trunk Railway passenger train hits a stopped freight train at a crossover in Napanee, Ontario; the engineer stayed at the controls trying to slow his train as much as possible and became the only fatality. The train's passengers later erected a monument in the engineer's honor.
* October 28, 1906 – Atlantic City, New Jersey: On a Sunday afternoon, a newly-electrified Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails as it begins to cross a drawbridge over a deep tidal channel as it approaches Atlantic City at forty miles per hour. The equipment bumps along the ties for convert|150|ft|m before departing the bridge and plunging into deep water. Fifty-seven die in what will remain the worst U.S. drawbridge accident until the Newark Bay commuter tragedy of September 15 1958.
* November 12, 1906 – Detroit, Michigan, United States: A train of the Michigan Central Railroad drives through the stub end of the Michigan Central's Third Street passenger yard and into the station itself.

1907

* September 15, 1907, Canaan, New Hampshire, United States: Quebec to Boston Express wreck; 25 people killed, with nearly 39 injured. The southbound express (No. 30), heavily loaded with passengers returning from the Sherbrooke Fair, collided at 4:26 a.m. on a foggy Sunday morning with a northbound Boston & Maine Railroad freight train (No. 267). The accident, convert|4|mi|km north of Canaan Station, was "due to a mistake in train dispatcher's orders." On March 17, 1907 Chas Anderson was killed due to an accident while working on the railroad. He left behind a wife Jennie and 3 children Otto, Loren, and Francis Anderson.
* October 15, 1907 – Shrewsbury rail accident, Shrewsbury, England: Evening sleeping-car and mail train from Manchester to the west of England derailed, probably due to driver error, 18 killed.

1908

* April 20, 1908 – Sunshine train disaster, Melbourne, Australia: Rear-end collision, kills 44 and injures around 400.
* May 21 1908 – Kontich, Belgium: 40 people are killed as a train crashes into a stationary passenger train in the railway station of Kontich.

1909

* April 12, 1909 – Gary, Indiana, United States: A westbound Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with the eastbound train.
* April 21 1909 – Cardiff, Wales: Fitter incorrectly assembles locomotive's safety valves. Boiler explodes in shed, killing three.
* June 19, 1909 – Burns Harbor, Indiana, United States: An eastbound Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with the westbound train. 12 were killed, 52 injured.

1910s

1910

* January 21, 1910 – Spanish River derailment Northern Ontario, Canada: Canadian Pacific Railway's westbound "Soo Express" derails while crossing the bridge at Spanish River. 44 people die, many more are injured.
* March 1, 1910 – Wellington near Cascade Tunnel, Washington, United States: Approximately 100 are killed when a snow avalanche pushes two trains off a cliff.
*flagicon|United States March 21, 1910 – Gladbrook, Iowa, United States: A Rock Island Railroad passenger train traveling from Des Moines to Waterloo, Iowa derailed, killing 47 passengers and severely injuring scores of others.
* December 24, 1910 – Hawes Junction train disaster, Cumbria, England: Busy signalman forgets about light engines on main line, and express signalled onto it. 12 killed.

1911

* July 11, 1911 – outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut: The Federal Express, carrying the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team on a trip from Philadelphia to Boston, plunges down an convert|18|ft|m|sing=on embankment, killing 14 passengers. [ [http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/chronology/1911JULY.stm#day11 Tuesday, July 11th] from BaseballLibrary.com] No one from the team is killed.
* August 13 1911 – Fort Wayne, Indiana: The Pennsylvania Railroad's "Penn Flyer" derails at Fort Wayne. Almost immediately, the derailed equipment is struck by an oncoming freight train, killing four and injuring 57.
* August 25 1911 – Manchester, New York: Two cars connected to the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Number 4 train derail near a bridge in Manchester, New York due to a broken rail. The cars plummet convert|45|ft|m into the stream below. Nearly 30 people are killed and dozens more injured in the wreck.

1912

* 1912 – Malmslätt, Sweden: A train runs into a stationary passenger train, leaving 22 dead and 12 injured.
* July 4, 1912 – Corning, New York, United States: A Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad express train crashes into the rear of a stalled excursion train near Corning on Independence Day, killing 39.
* July 5, 1912 – Between Ligonier and Wilpen in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States: A locomotive was pushing a passenger coach, which collided with an oncoming freight train, killing 26 on the Ligonier Valley Railroad.
* San Antonio, Texas – Largest boiler explosion in US history occurred at the Southern Pacific roundhouse in San Antonio, Texas.

1913

* January 1, 1913 – West Virginia, United States: A too heavy locomotive goes into the Guyandotte River bridge which is being repaired. Bridge collapses and 7 {engineer and 6 workmen} are killed.
* July 26, 1913 – Bramminge train accident, Denmark: A train derails near Bramming due to heat-stressed rails. 15 die and about 80 are injured.
* July 30 1913 – Tyrone, Pennsylvania, United States: Two Pennsylvania Railroad trains collide in front of the station at Tyrone when the engineer of Chicago Mail train No. 13 runs through a stop signal, and his locomotive crushes the rear coach of train No. 15, the "Pittsburgh Express". The first postal car of the moving train is thrown across the track into the front of the depot. The engineer is killed and 163 passengers are injured. Collision occurred at 2:38 PM. All-steel cars on both trains are credited with the low mortality.
* September 1, 1913 – Ais Gill rail crash, Cumbria, England: Distracted engine crew pass signals at danger, and crash into train stalled on gradient. 14 killed, 38 seriously injured

1914

* 1914 – Exeter crossing loop collision, New South Wales, Australia

1915

* January 1, 1915 – Ilford, The 7:06 express from Clacton to London passed both distant and home signals. The express crashed into the side of a local train that had been crossing the tracks. 10 killed, 500 injured.
* May 22 1915 – In the Quintinshill rail crash, four trains including a troop train collide and catch fire causing 227 fatalities and injuring 246 people at Quintinshill, Gretna Green, Scotland; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy location. This becomes the greatest loss of life in any railway accident in the UK, before or since.

1916

* November 7, 1916 – Boston, Massachusetts: A crowded passenger car of the Boston Elevated Street Railway plunged through an open drawbrigde into Fort Point Channel, just outside the South Station terminal. Fifty were killed.
* November 31, 1916 – Herceghalom, Austria-Hungary: The train arriving from the funeral of Franz Joseph I crashes into the fast train to Graz. 71 people killed.

1917

* February 17, 1917 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad fast freight strikes the rear of a stalled passenger train at Mt. Union. Twenty are killed as the last sleeper, a steel car named "Bellwood", telescopes into the next car.
* February 26, 1917 – near Soderhamn, Sweden: A train carrying invalid Russian soldiers home from Germany derails, causing the carriages to pile into one another. 48 are killed.
* September 24, 1917 – at Bere Ferrers railway station in England a troop train of soldiers from New Zealand going from Plymouth to Salisbury following their arrival in Britain stopped at the station for a brief rest. Being unaccustomed to British railways they alighted from their troop train onto the tracks. Ten soldiers were struck and killed by an oncoming express on another track.
* December 12, 1917 – Saint Michel de Maurienne (Modane), France: A military train derails at the entrance of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel after running away down a steep gradient; brake power was insufficient for the weight of the train. Around 800 deaths estimated, 540 officially confirmed. The world's worst rail disaster up to the end of the 20th century.
* December 14, 1917 – A passenger train derails near Clemson, South Carolina with at least three cars leaving the rails and one overturning down an embankment. Three people are killed.
* February 16, 1917 – Holmsveden, Sweden - An incorrectly set switch causes a passenger train to run into a pumping house, killing 11 and injuring 40.

1918

* June 22, 1918 – Hammond circus train wreck, near Hammond, Indiana, United States: An empty Michigan Central Railroad troop train ploughs into the rear end of the stopped Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train. 86 killed, 127 injured. The engineer of the troop train had been taking "kidney pills" which had a narcotic effect and he was asleep at the throttle. This accident will be recreated, Hollywood-style, in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth", released in 1952.
* July 9, 1918 – Great train wreck of 1918, Nashville, Tennessee, United States: Two Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad trains collide head-on. 101 killed, 171 injured at Shops Junction-West Nashville, Tennessee.
* July 26, 1918 – A freight train carrying dynamite explodes, with passenger cars damaged at Shimonoseki station, Shimonoseki, western Honshu, Japan, killing at least 27, injuring another 106.
* September 13, 1918 – Weesp, Netherlands. Heavy rainfall caused the railroad underbody of the track sloping to the Merwedekanaal bridge to become unstable. When a passenger train approaches the bridge, the track suddenly slides off the slope, which causes the carts crashing into each other and the locomotive hitting the bridge. A total of 41 persons are killed, 42 are injured. In the aftermath of the disaster, it is decided to establish a dedicated study of soil mechanics at the Delft University of Technology.
* October 1, 1918 – Getå, Sweden: Getå train disaster, the most fatal train accident in the history of rail transport in Sweden. A passenger train runs off the rails because of a landslide in Getå (currently Norrköping Municipality). 41 die , 41 injured.
* November 1, 1918 – The Malbone Street Wreck occurs on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) in New York City when an inexperienced motorman (pressed into service due to a strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) drives one of the system's subway trains too quickly into a very sharp curve, derailing the train in a tunnel, killing at least 93 and injuring over 100.

1919

* November 1, 1919 – Vigerslev train crash, Denmark: An express train collides at speed with a stopped train due to a dispatcher error. 40 people are killed and about 60 injured.

1920s

1920

1921

* January 26, 1921 – Abermule train collision, Montgomeryshire, Wales: faulty operation of train tablet leads to head-on collision killing 17 people.
* September 18, 1921 – Nidareid train disaster in Trondheim, Norway. Confusion and unfortunate circumstances lead to a head-on collision between two passenger trains killing 6.
* December 5, 1921 – Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: on the Reading Railroad's Newtown Line at the Bryn Athyn Cut, a head-on collision between two passenger trains killed 27 and injured 70.

1922

* February 3, 1922 – At least 87 are killed when six cars of a passenger train fall into the Sea of Japan between Oyashirazu and Ome on the Hokuriku Line, western Niigata, Japan, in an incident caused by an avalanche after heavy snowfall.
* July 3, 1922 – Winslow Junction Train Derailment, Winslow, New Jersey: on the West Jersey and Seashore's Line near the Winslow Tower, at 12:30am, a derailment of Train 33, the Owl, when the shore bound train going 90 miles per hour sped through an open switch at Winslow Junction. Four passengers, the engineer, fireman and conductor were killed, 65 were injured. Blame was fixed on the switchman in the tower and the Owl's engineer. This crash is memorialized with a sign at Winslow Junction, which reports the date incorrectly as July 21, 1922, and refers to the train as the 'Midnight Flyer'. It appears from reports in the New York Times dated from July 3 - July 8 1922, that 'Midnight Flier' was a nickname for this particular route/time.

1923

* July 23, 1923 – Domingo, New Mexico, United States: Westbound Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway double-headed fourteen-car passenger train derails on curve at Domingo, killing both engineers and firemen, and injuring 45 passengers.

* September 1, 1923 – Nebukawa Station, Odawara, Japan: A landslide caused by 1923 Great Kanto earthquake hit Nebukawa station and a train approaching. 112 passengers killed and thirteen injured.

* September 27, 1923 – near Glenrock, Wyoming, United States: A Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad passenger train fell through a washed out bridge at Coal Creek, killing 30 of the train's 66 passengers. This marks the worst railroad accident in Wyoming's history. [ [http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/06/22/news/casper/a2e0ab59d0ef19c0872570270020fd84.txt Casper Star-Tribune Online - Casper ] ]

1924

* June 3, 1924 – A passenger train derails near Jõgeva, Estonia. 10 people are killed and numerous people are injured. The exact cause of the accident remains unknown. Although the government said this was an act of crime, no further comments were given.
* July 4, 1924 – A post train derails near Jõgeva, Estonia. Due to broken railway, 11 people are killed.
* December 27, 1924 – According to reports in Japanese newspapers Mainichi and Yomiuri, Temiya railroad station and Otaru harbor facilities are destroyed by the explosion of a standing freight train carrying dynamite at Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan, killing at least 94.

1925

* January 30, 1925 – Owencarrow Viaduct Disaster. Four killed as a train is blown off a viaduct in Donegal in winds approaching convert|120|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on.

* June 9, 1925 – near Traveston, South East Queensland, Australia. Derailment near Traveston of the Rockhampton Mail train on a high timber trestle bridge. Ten people were killed and 48 injured when a passenger car and the luggage van plunged off the bridge, and another passenger car was pulled on its side. It resulted in baggage cars being specially built for passenger trains and ended, for a time, the use of goods vehicles on passenger trains. [cite web | last = Hallam | first = Greg | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 1999 | url = http://web.archive.org/web/20030411221812/http://www.sunsteam.org.au/Chapter6-3.htm | title = Chapter 3: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Bundaberg | work = Volume 6: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Cairns | publisher = SunSteam Inc | accessdate = 2003-04-11 Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 2006-06-09.]

* June 16, 1925, – Rockport, New Jersey (near Hackettstown). A seven car Lackawanna Railroad passenger train travelling to Hoboken, NJ encountered an obstruction on the tracks during a torrential rainstorm. The train was derailed and subsequently the engine boiler exploded scalding passengers. Fifty persons were killed. The train was an excursion train with passengers returning to Bremen, Germany. A small memorial plaque marks the site of the wreck.

* September 21, 1925, – Two armoured trains crashed near Elva, Estonia. The accident happened during military exercises and left five soldiers dead. The cause of the crash was a coordination fault.

1926

* March 14, 1926, Río Virilla, Costa Rica: A train fell off a bridge over the Río Virilla, between Santo Domingo de Heredia and Tibás resulting in 248 deaths and 93 wounded.
* September 13, 1926 – Murulla railway accident, Murulla, Australia: Goods wagons on a siding come uncoupled, roll down a slope and smash into an oncoming mail train, resulting in 27 deaths and 37 injuries.
* September 23, 1926 – A Tokyo-Shimonoseki limited express derailed at Hataga river bridge at eastern Hiroshima, Japan, in an incident caused heavy rain and flooding, killing 34, another 38 are injured.
* December 23, 1926, Rockmart, Georgia: Two express trains on the Southern Railway collide, killing 19 and injuring 123. Southbound train No. 101, The Royal Palm, arrives at Rockmart to take on water while waiting for northbound No. 2, the Ponce de Leon. At the moment of impact, No. 101 was standing at a dead stop, the engine crew having applied the emergency brakes and jumped when it became clear that a collision was inevitable. All of the fatalities occur aboard No. 2, most in the crowded steel dining car, which is telescoped by the coach ahead of it. No. 2 was said to have been going at least convert|40|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on at the time of the crash. Official reports blame the failure of a railway official who took charge of train No. 2, as well as its engineer, to fully understand their meet orders with No. 101, and their confusion of No. 101 with a freight train just preceding it.

1927

* January 22, 1927 – Round Rock, Texas: A bus carrying the Baylor University basketball team to a game at the University of Texas at Austin takes a grade crossing just as an International-Great Northern train approaches. Evasive action is taken, but the bus skids on the rain-soaked road surface directly into the path of the train. 10 players are killed, 12 injured. To this day Baylor honors them as the "Immortal Ten."

1928

* March 12, 1928 – Katukurunda, Sri Lanka(Ceylon): Two Sri Lankan trains collide head-on into one another at high speed, crushing several compartments and killing 28 people. [ [http://www.gyan.doctors.org.uk/locoaccidents.htm] ]
* August 24, 1928 – New York, New York: A subway train crashes at the 42nd Street-Times Square station, killing 16 in the second worst accident in New York City Subway history.
* October 13, 1928 – Charfield, Gloucestershire, England: two trains collide, the gas lights on the passenger train cause a significant fire to develop leading to the death of about 15 people {Estimated}. {At least 11 known/believed dead}
* 1928 – Lindfield train disaster, Sydney, Australia: collision when train speeds after stop-and-proceed-at-red signal.

1929

* January 22, 1929 – Bellevue, Ohio, United States: Bus is struck by an interurban car. 21 killed.
* July 18, 1929 – Stratton, Colorado, United States: Flash flood waters sweep away the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad bridge at Stratton, wrecking a passing Rock Island passenger train. Ten bodies are recovered after flood waters recede.
*flagicon|Germany August 25, 1929 – Buir, Germany: The D29 "Nordexpress", running from Paris to Warsaw, derails some 300 metres north of Buir station, near the town of Düren. Due to ongoing construction work, the train is supposed to be diverted to a siding, but the train driver notices the signal too late, entering the siding with 100 km/h instead of 50 km/h. 13 passengers are killed as the train derails, 40 are hurt. This led to the introduction of the "La", the German railways' book of temporary speed restrictions on the network.

1930s

1930

* January 22, 1930 – Berea, Ohio, USA: New York Central mail train headed for Chicago broadsides a school bus at grade. 9 passengers, all aged 6-11, and the driver die. He had stopped for a passing freight, then proceeded, without looking, into the path of the mail train.
* April 11, 1930 – Isleta, New Mexico, USA: Santa Fe westbound mail train No. 7 strikes a Greyhound bus at a grade crossing convert|12|mi|km south of Albuquerque. 21 killed, 7 injured. Bus's fuel tank explodes on impact, burning many victims beyond recognition. The Interstate Commerce Commission report on the accident mentions that at this time, accidents at railroad grade crossings are causing some 2,000 deaths and 6,000 injuries annually.
* June 30, 1930 – USSR: Amidst a rash of Soviet rail accidents, the Irkutsk-Leningrad express derails in northwest Russia, killing 22 and injuring 28. The State Commissar of Railways begins a housecleaning program that uncovers high levels of carelessness and even drunkenness on the job. Severe penalties are put in place for negligence; as a result of the 1930 crashes, 12 railway workers are imprisoned and two executed.
* December 3, 1930 – USSR: A tram motorman fails to heed crossing signals and pulls into the path of an oncoming locomotive. 28 die, 19 are injured. The accident leads to the imprisonment of 16 additional railway workers.

1931

* January 26, 1931 – Groningen, The Netherlands: An incoming passenger train from Nieuweschans collides with a freight train. A shunter told the freight train driver to accelerate in spite of a stop signal. 3 killed, 5 injured.
* May 27, 1931 – Moorhead, Minnesota: The Great Northern Railway's "Empire Builder", bound for Chicago from Seattle, is torn from the tracks by a tornado. One coach, weighing 83 tons, is hit full force and flung convert|80|ft|m through the air. One passenger is killed, 57 injured.
* September 13, 1931 – Biatorbágy, Hungary: Sylvestre Matuschka blows up the viaduct under the Budapest-Vienna express train, killing 22 passengers and injuring 17.

1932

* January 2, 1932 – near Moscow, USSR: Two packed suburban trains collide after one strikes and kills a person walking the track. The train stops to retrieve the body but puts out no flares, lanterns or flags. The next train on the line slams into it at convert|50|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on, crushing six cars. In another tragic error, injured passengers are helped to a parallel track, where they are struck by yet a third locomotive. 68 are killed.
* September 14, 1932 – near Turenne, Algeria: A 14-car troop train of the French Foreign Legion derails in the Atlas Mountains and plunges convert|250|ft|m into a gorge. Fifty legionnaires and most of the train's crew die; 223 are injured.

1933

* August 29, 1933: The Golden State Limited, a transcontinental passenger train, went through a storm-weakened bridge into an arroyo near Tucumcari, New Mexico. 11 people were killed and 46 injured.

* December 14, 1933: 11 area children were killed when their school bus was hit by an Atlantic Coast Line freight train near Crescent City, Florida, resulting in the deaths of ten of the school children and the serious injury of a score of others--"several of whom are not expected to recover."

* December 23, 1933: Rear-end collision of Paris-Nancy express and Paris-Strasbourg fast train between Lagny-sur-Marne and Pomponne (Seine-et-Marne), 17 mi (23 km) out of Paris. 230 are killed and 300 injured aboard the Nancy express as its 7 wood coaches are smashed. The driver of the Strasbourg train had passed a signal at danger in darkness and fog, but the "Crocodile" acoustic warning system was found to have failed because the contacts had iced over. The Compagnie de Chemin de fer de l'Est was ordered to pay FFr44,000,000 in compensation to victims' families.

1934

* September 21, 1934 – Otsu, Japan: The Biwako Line express train from Tokyo derails off the Seta River bridge in the midst of the devastating Muroto typhoon. At least 11 killed, 216 injured.
* September 28, 1934 – Winwick rail crash, near Warrington, England: overworked signal box crew forget a train halted at a signal and allow another train into section; 12 people killed.

1935

* April 11, 1935 – Rockville, Maryland: A school bus driver, returning students to Williamsport, Maryland from a field trip at 11:30pm, does not notice the reflective signs at a grade crossing and drives his bus into the path of an oncoming Baltimore & Ohio train. 14 students are killed, 15 others injured. In violation of a Maryland law requiring watchmen at crossings until midnight, the B&O had kept a watchman on duty only till 10pm.

* December 24, 1935 – Großheringen, Germany: A local packed with Christmas travelers, just leaving a depot in Thuringia, runs a red signal on a bridge and sideswipes a Berlin-Frankfurt am Main express. Coaches on the local go over the side into the frozen Saale River. 36 killed, 50 or more injured.

* Welwyn Garden City rail crash - 15 June, 1935 - signalman's error.

1936

* March 28, 1936 – Byron, Georgia: A Central of Georgia passenger train, going too fast through a grade crossing at night, strikes a bus which had failed to stop at the crossing. 11 of the 13 aboard the bus are killed.
* July 21, 1936 – Vandergrift, Pennsylvania: An 8" long piece of strap iron left on the track by a 12-year-old boy derails an 87-car PRR freight, killing the engine fireman.
* November 24, 1936 – Chicago, Illinois: A North Shore Line interurban rear-ends a Chicago L train at Granville Avenue. Though the crash was at slow speed, steel cars on the L crushed wood cars coupled between them. 10 killed, 59 injured.

1937

* April 2, 1937 – Battersea Park, London: two passenger trains collide. 10 killed, 17 injured. The signalman believed there was a fault with his equipment and overrode the interlocking.
* July 16, 1937 – A Delhi-Kolkata express derailed at Patna, Bihar, India, killing 107.
* October 22, 1937 – Mason City, Iowa: The Rock Island Line "Rocket" streamliner strikes a school bus at grade just outside a brick and tile factory after a class tour. 10 killed, 19 injured. Sight lines were obstructed by tile pallets stacked near the crossing.
* December 10, 1937 – Castlecary, Scotland: An LNER Edinburgh-Glasgow commuter express, traveling convert|70|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on in white-out conditions, rear-ends a local train standing in the station. 35 killed, 179 injured, most seriously. The local had been running late.

1938

*flagicon|Japan June 15, 1938 – A Shimonoseki-Kyoto passendger train derailed by heavy rain with mud-rock flow at Kumayama-Wake of JR Sanyo Line, eastern Okayama, Japan, killing 25, another 108 are injured.
*flagicon|USA June 19, 1938 – Miles City, Montana: "Olympian Flyer" plunges into creek when a 30-year-old bridge, weakened by heavy rain, collapses; 47 people killed.
*flagcountry|Jamaica|1906 July 30, 1938 – near Balaclava Station, Jamaica: five overcrowded cars derail; 32 killed, 70 injured.
*flagicon|Spain September, 1938 – Martorell, near Barcelona, Spain: Faulty signals and poor visibility on a curve are blamed after two trains on same track collide head-on. 65 killed.
*flagicon|Brazil December 19, 1938 – A freight and passenger train collide near Barbacena, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wooden cars splinter and catch fire, killing at least 82. Some of the dead are Boy Scouts.
*flagicon|Mexico December 21, 1938 – convert|45|mi|km from Mexico City, a broken wheel causes 14 cars to derail, killing at least 40. Most passengers were government employees on holiday.
*flagicon|Moldova December 25, 1938 – In Bessarabia near Chişinău--which is now in Moldova but was then part of Romania--two passenger trains collide in a snowstorm. 93 killed, 340 injured.

1939

* March 20, 1939: RBD Stettin on main line between Angermünde and Pasewalk Express train D 17 derailed. Boiler of locomotive 03.174 (Borsig 14535 / 1934) exploded due boiler water shortage. Two killed and two injured. Locomotive 03.174 had to be abandoned due severe damages.
* August 12, 1939: An act of sabotage sends the "City of San Francisco" flying off of a bridge in the Nevada desert; several passengers and crew members are killed, and five cars are destroyed. This case remains unsolved.
* November 11, 1939 – RBD Oppeln Cosel - Bauerwitz single line. Passenger trains P 950 and P 957 crashed due faulty signals. 43 killed and 48 injured.
* December 22 1939 – Genthin, Germany: collision when train D180 drove into previous delayed and overcrowded train D10 from Berlin to Cologne. 186 killed, 453 injured. Highest number of fatalities ever in an accident in Germany.
* December 22, 1939 – Markdorf, Germany: collision of a special passenger train and a goods train on the Radolfzell-Lindau line, 101 killed. These were the first accidents in German railway history to claim more than 100 victims; they happened on the same day.

1940s

1940

* flagicon|Japan January 29, 1940 – Three gasoline multiple units carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi station, Nishinari Line (present-day Sakurajima Line), Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92.
* March 12, 1940 – Turenki, Finland: soldier train and freight train collided, 39 people died and 69 injured. This was the worst train accident in Finland.
* flagicon|United States April 19, 1940 – Little Falls, New York, United States: The westbound New York Central "Lake Shore Limited", running fifteen minutes late, fails to reduce speed to 45 miles per hour at Gulf Curve (nicknamed "Death Curve") near Little Falls, sharpest on the NYC System, and at convert|59|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on the locomotive derails, crosses two tracks and strikes a rock wall whereupon it explodes and nine cars pile up behind it. At least 30 known dead, including the engineer, and 100 injured in the accident.
* flagicon|United States July 31, 1940 – Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, United States: The PRR "Doodlebug," a gasoline-electric interurban car, fails to take a siding and collides with an oncoming freight, causing the gas tanks to explode. The crew jump before the crash; all 43 passengers die as the wreck burns too intensely to allow rescuers near for half an hour. A federal investigation suggests the Doodlebug's driver had become disoriented due to carbon monoxide in a poorly ventilated cab.
* November 4, 1940 – Norton Fitzwarren, England: Great Western Railway train driver misreads the signals on a four-track line that merges to two, and runs his train off the end of the track. Coaches telescope, killing 27 and injuring 75. Although driver error is primary cause, an inadequate signal plant is a contributing factor. Track plan was not visible under wartime black-out conditions.
* December 3, 1940 – Velilla de Ebro, Spain: Two express trains collide at 4:00 am near this remote depot some convert|30|mi|km outside Zaragoza, killing 41 and injuring 80. Several of the more gravely injured perish at the scene due to the extreme cold. Investigators establish that no one threw the switch that would have put one express on a clear track.

1941

* July 19, 1941 – Krylbo, Sweden: German munitions train explodes in Krylbo. It is unknown whether it was an accident or sabotage. Later the British claimed to be behind this successful sabotage action.
* September 16, 1941 – An express train collides with standing local train inside Aboshi station, Himeji, Japan, killing at least 65 and injuring 71.
* October 1, 1941 – A local train bound for Kumamoto, Japan on the Hohi Line derailed at Kawarauchi river bridge on the outskirts of Ōita, Kyūshū, causing 3 passenger cars to plunge into the river, killing at least 44 people, and injuring at least 72.
* December 27 RBD Osten – D 123 crashed on Frankfurt an der Oder - Posen main line at Bf Leichtholz stopped freight train Dg 7053. The snow plough had damaged signal system. Six tank wagons loaded with benzin exploded burning five passenger coaches of D 123. 41 killed and 57 injured.

1942

* December 27, 1942 – Almonte, Ontario, Canada: 36 people are killed and over 200 injured when a passenger train running late was struck from behind by a troop train.

1943

* February 28, 1943 – RBD Posen Military vacation express train SF 76 collied with freight train Dg 19540 at Bf Galkau. The stop signal ignored. 25 killed and 12 injured.
* June 4, 1943 – Hyde railway accident, New Zealand: Train derails taking a curved cutting at over twice the rated speed. 21 killed, 47 injured. Engineman found to have been drunk on duty; served 3 years for manslaughter.
* September 6, 1943 – 79 people are killed, and 117 injured when the Pennsylvania Railroad's Congressional Limited derails in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, due to an axle bearing overheating. The accident occurred as the signalman at Frankford Junction was telephoning the next tower to stop the train.
* September 15, 1943 – RBD Stettin N 8713 run in heavy fog into the rear of on line stopped N 8702. 18 killed and 41 injured.
* September 23, 1943 – Dmw 31 derailed on RBD Königsberg Bialystok - Prostken line. 23 killed and 33 injured.
* October 26, 1943 – Two freight trains collide with a derailed passenger train at Joban Line, Tsuchiura, Japan, causing two carriages to plunge into the river, killing 110 and injuring 107 according to Japanese media.
* December 25, 1943 – RBD Königsberg E 32 collided with freight train Dg 94476 between Korschen and Lötzen. The driver did not notice warning signal. 15 killed and 34 injured.
* December 31, 1943 – RBD Stettin Tantow Military vacation express train SF 62 crashed with two locomotives which were stopped on line. 38 killed and 16 injured.

1944

* January 3, 1944 – The Madrid-Coruna express collides with a switch engine and catches fire inside Torre del Bierzo tunnel n° 20 in Leon province, Spain. Smoke and flames in the tunnel delay rescuers for two days. 78 killed officially, maybe over 250; exaggerated estimates of 500-800 still seen in reference books.
* January 11, 1944 – Accident in Arévalo station in Ávila province, Spain. 41 killed.
* February 1944 – Train collision near Breifoss between Hol and Geilo, Norway, at the Bergensbanen line. 25 killed.
* March 3, 1944 – Balvano Train Disaster, Italy: 530 passengers die of carbon monoxide poisoning when their train stalls in a tunnel.
* June 2, 1944 – Soham Rail Disaster, England: The train carrying American ammunitions to base in Essex caught alight and exploded killing the fireman and signalman.
* July 6, 1944 – Troop train crash near Jellico, Tennessee, United States: Passenger train derails due to excessive speed on defective track. 35 killed, 99 injured; all soldiers in U.S. Army en route to deployment.
* September 28 1944– Side collision, passenger and freight train Chicago & North Western Railway at Missouri Valley Iowa 9 killed, 95 injured
* November 7, 1944 – Passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico due to excessive speed in a declining hill. 16 killed; 50 injured.
* November 24, 1944 – collision of two trains in Barwałd Średni, Poland, killed 130 people.
* November 8, 1944 Nine persons were known to have been killed and at least 125 injured at dawn when the first section of the westbound Southern Pacific Challenger jumped the tracks and hurtled into a ditch three miles (5 km) west of Colfax. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* December 26, 1944 – According to Japanese media, a commuter train collided with another standing commuter train at Tsurumi market station, Keikyu Line, Yokohama, Japan, killing at least 53, and another 94 injured.

1945

* January 10, 1945 – According to Japanese media and government reports, a local train derailed at Masuda river bridge, with two passenger cars plunging into river, Takayama Line, northern Gifu Prefecture, Japan, killing at least 43, injuring 56.
* January 10, 1945 – Ballymacarrett, East Belfast, Northern Ireland. Collision in fog. 23 killed, 24 injured. [ [http://www.downrail.co.uk/hist.htm History of the Railways ] ]
* January 13, 1945 – Snåsa, Norway: A bridge was destroyed in the Jørstad River bridge sabotage. Later a train passed unaware of the sabotage, crashed into the river below, killing 70-80 people, and injuring some 100 more.
* May 17, 1945 – According to Japanese media and government reports, two commuter trains collided head-on at Toyama Local Railway (Toyama Chiho Railway) Line, Toyama, Japan, at least 43 killed, another 257 injured.
* May 21, 1945 – Piqua, Ohio, United States: a seventeen-car west bound troop train, travelling on the Pennsylvania Railroad line, derails at high speed. Eight cars plunge down a convert|20|ft|m|sing=on embankment, injuring 24 of the 400 soldiers on board; poor track maintenance due to wartime personnel shortages is blamed. [http://www.indianamilitary.org/NEWSLETTER/2005/February/ TROOP TRAIN DERAILS AT PIQUA, OHIO]
*flagicon|Germany July 16, 1945 – Assling, Germany: A US Army train carrying tanks runs into a passenger train which had stalled due to an engine breakdown after the American signalman tells the freight train to proceed despite the track still being occupied. About 110 German POWs are killed as the mostly wooden coaches of the passenger train are destroyed. [ [http://www.e94114.de/E94-Geschichte/E94_1945-1969.htm Geschichte E94 1945-1969 ] ]
* August 9, 1945 – Michigan, North Dakota, United States: Great Northern's "Empire Builder" plows into a stalled observation car, 34 killed.
* August 20, 1945 – Two commuter trains collide head-on at Nishitetsu Tenjin Omuta Line, Omuta, Kyūshū, Japan, killing 40. another 83 are injured.
* August 24, 1945 – Two passenger trains collided and plunged into the Tama river, Hachiko-Line, Hachioji, Japan, killing at least 105 people, injuring another 67. Caused by heavy rain and flood.
* September 6, 1945 – According to Japanese Railroad Ministry and NHK radio report, a Shinjyuku-Matsumoto local passenger train rammed safety catch point and crushing a locomotive and three passenger cars at Sasago switch back station, Otsuki, Yamanashi, Japan, in an incident caused by train driver is brake failure, at least sixty killed, injuring 91.
* September 8, 1945 – Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales: An early morning mail train crashes after the adjacent canal flooded and washed away the track at Sun Bank, killing the driver and causing a fire.
* September 30, 1945 – Bourne End, Hertfordshire, England: train fails to slow down for temporary diversion to slow lines and derails, 43 killed.
* November 18, 1945 – A commuter train from Sanda derailed at Kobe Electric railroad (Kobe Dentetsu) Line, Kobe, Japan, killing at least 45, injuring another 131.

1946

* January 28, 1946 – A commuter train crushd and derailed at safety catch point inside Tsurumaki station, Odakyu Line, Hadano, outskirt of Tokyo, Japan, killing at least 30, another 165 injured, in an incident of caused by vandalism of a train appliance by passenger(s).
* April 26, 1946 – Naperville, Illinois, United States: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's "Advance Flyer", stopped in Naperville station to check the running gear, is rammed by the Burlington's "Exposition Flyer", coming through on the same track at convert|80|mi/h|km/h|abbr=on. 47 killed, some 125 injured.
* December 13, 1946 – near Coulter, Ohio, United States: The PRR's "Golden Triangle" sleeper train derails in darkness when it strikes the wreckage of 2 freight trains which had rear-ended half an hour earlier on an adjacent track. 19 killed, 139 injured. Most of the dead are soldiers on furlough from Fort Dix, New Jersey, seated in two day coaches at the front of the train.

1947

* February 18, 1947 – Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States: The Red Arrow, a Pennsylvania Railroad express passenger train, jumped off the track on the Bennington Curve near Altoona, Pennsylvania and tumbled down a large hill. 24 killed, 131 injured.
* February 25, 1947 – Hachiko Line rail crash, Komagawa, Saitama, Japan: A train derailed on sharp curve and four cars fell onto a farm. 184 are killed, 495 are injured.
* May 5, 1947 – Camp Mountain train disaster, Queensland, Australia: A picnic train derails after taking a sharp curve too fast on the Dayboro line to the north-west of Brisbane. 16 killed.
* September 1, 1947 – Dugald train disaster, Dugald, Manitoba, Canada: A Canadian National Railway excursion train failed to take the siding and collided with the No. 4 Transcontinental that was standing on the main line. 31 people were killed, most by fire breaking out in two gas-lit wooden cars on the excursion train.
* October 24, 1947 – South Croydon rail crash, South London, England: Signalman improperly uses release key to free signals. Two commuter trains collide in thick fog, 32 killed.

1948

* January 5, 1948 – An express commuter train derails due to excessive speed, at Meitetsu Seto Line, outskirt of Nagoya, Japan, killing at least 35 people and injuring another 154.
* January 25, 1948 – Los Angeles, California, United States: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's "Super Chief" experiences brake failure arriving Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and crashes through a bumper and concrete barrier at the end of track. The locomotive slides to the edge of the station retaining wall and comes to rest dangling convert|20|ft|m above street level. No one is injured.
* February 28, 1948 – Wadenswil, Lake Zurich, Switzerland: Swiss South Eastern Railway train runs away down a steep incline and crashes into a house after being diverted into a siding to avoid collision with other trains. 21 killed. The cause was unique: power and regenerative brake were controlled through a two-way handle and the driver firmly believed he was braking, but was in fact applying power.
* March 31, 1948 – During morning rush hour, an express commuter train collides with a local commuter train at Hanazono station, Kintetsu Nara Line, Higashiosaka, Japan, killing at least 49 people and injuring another 272. The cause was excessive speed by the express train driver.

1949

* October 22, 1949 – Danzig-Warsaw express derailed at Dwor, Poland, killing at least 200.

See also

* List of rail accidents
* London Underground accidents

References

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External links

* [http://www.northeast.railfan.net/wreck.html Railroad train wrecks 1907-2007]