Slashdot Mirror
In France, TGV Test Train Catches Fire, Derails, Killing 10 (mirror.co.uk)
McGruber writes with the Mirror's report that: Earlier today in Eckwersheim, France, TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) 2369 Test Train caught fire, derailed and overturned. Two carriages were partially submerged into a river and at least five people were killed. As of now, there are no direct links with the terrorist attacks on Paris and the train crash does not appear to have been caused deliberately. A TGV test train holds the record for the fastest wheeled train, having reached 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007. Today's derailment appears to have been the first fatal crash of a TGV while running at high speed.
NBC News reports that 10 people were killed, all employees of the French national railway system.
NBC News reports that 10 people were killed, all employees of the French national railway system.
Driving faster than the tracks allow is dangerous regardless of the absolute speed. Die Mariazellerbahn in Austria showed this quite clearly in 1981. A train was driving too fast, derailed on a bridge and the locomotive fell off and killed the driver. I can't find the actual speed or speed restriction, but with a locomotive top speed of 50 km/h, it would be a high speed accident in slow motion. It was the first AC electric locomotive class btw, operating from 1911 to 2013 and the other 15 engines survived all those years of daily operation. Modern engineers could learn something about durability from studying those.
Says who? From pictures I've seen any fire was _after_ the accident and pretty limited. Who exactly is spreading this (dis)information?
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Just as a reminder, this is a test train crash, not in service, only 49 people inside, all employees.
Excessive speed may be the cause but it is yet unconfirmed.
I don't believe in a link with terrorists attacks. What terrorist would attack a test train? Especially one that is has nothing special. For a successful train attack, it is probably the one that will get you the least attention.
I'm surprised they haven't been attacked before now.
What did you think the French Resistance did throughout WW2?
The reason civilians aren't being killed en masse every day isn't because nobody's thought of a way to do it, nor because we have near-perfect security services, but because nearly everybody alive has no desire whatsoever to commit mass murder. But humans have no conception of statistics, so we get hysterical over 0.0002% of Muslims in France attacking under 0.01% of Parisiens, even while routine transport accidents kill hundreds every day throughout Europe. (And don't get me start on genuine suicide through mental illness, which receives less and less attention of health services.)
N.B. I still think those responsible in France are murderous bastards. My mother studied in Paris and I've enjoyed a lot of time there. But I am capable of putting things in proportion.
Yeah, shut your mouth or a muslim will shut it for you.
PERMANENTLY.
It's of course tragic that the French National Railway employees were killed, but it probably would have been worse for the nation as a whole if this came out as another round of Islamist terrorism. It's a sad thing when ten people die, and you think something like, "well, at least they weren't murdered."
Hopefully, they'll be able to figure out what went wrong with the train and prevent any further tragedies (especially when the trains are loaded with passengers).
We will never be the change to the weather and the sea
Don't be an idiot. Since 1981, the TGV lines have carried one billion passengers without loss of life.
The accident was on a newly-constructed line not open to passengers yet. They have thoroughly simulated both the trains and the line, but at some point you have to switch from simulations and actually run a train on your new track.
And let's wait for the accident report before mouthing off about imagined incompetence, huh?
Right on the mark. The first thing is that such attacks _cannot_ be prevented. No, really not. You can only do a lot of damage trying to, like creating a police state or worse. The US has demonstrated how to be utterly stupid that way since 9/11. The second thing is that such attacks rarely ever happen and, compared to other causes, are not a relevant risk of death or injury, because almost all people that con do this (and those are very, very many, just think what a competent chemical engineer or physicists could do..) do not care to do them.
The smart way to react is to clean up and then return to business as usual. The utterly stupid way is to promise to "fight back", to increase "security measures" and generally give the terrorists a lot of kudos for a successful attack. This just makes sure they can congratulate themselves and that they can stay funded and motivated to continue. After all, terrorists are in it for the attention. The more you give to them, the worse.
And, of course, all the budding fascists in politics and in the "security" bureaucracy jump right on this, do their best to assist the terrorists by creating even more fear and then try to reduce the individual freedoms they so hate (sharing that with the terrorists). It will be no different this time.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Most people understand and accept the risks of accidental deaths for the sake of modern conveniences, like driving in cars, flying commercial airliners, and of course, taking trains like this. The reason we react the way we do to terrorism is because it's a deliberate, cold-hearted act of barbarity that takes the lives of innocent people for the sake of politics, ideology, religion, or some combination thereof. The tragedy of the Paris attacks is not that so many people died. As you point out, probably more people died in traffic accidents that day in Europe. The tragedy is that those people died so needlessly.
While this presumed accident is sad, particularly for the family and friends of the victim, they can take comfort in knowing that perhaps this will lead to safer operations for others in the future. We tend to learn our hardest lessons from accidents like these. Hopefully future trains will be safer as a result of the investigation into whatever went wrong here.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Most people understand and accept the risks of accidental deaths for the sake of modern conveniences, like driving in cars, flying commercial airliners, and of course, taking trains like this. The reason we react the way we do to terrorism is because it's a deliberate, cold-hearted act of barbarity that takes the lives of innocent people
You've not driven much, have you? Crashes are about 95% human error. Deliberate errors are most of those. The act of running the red was quite deliberate. The act of speeding while doing it. The act of hitting the other car may not have been deliberate, but then, if you point a gun and fire at someone, nobody assumes it was unintentional until proven otherwise, but with cars, it's the opposite. But the large number of insanely poor drivers allowed on the road, killing a 9/11 worth of people every month for 30 years proves people don't care about death.
The tragedy of the Paris attacks is not that so many people died. As you point out, probably more people died in traffic accidents that day in Europe. The tragedy is that those people died so needlessly.
No, it's that so many white people died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... People don't care if Africans die in the same numbers in terrorist attacks. Black lives matters is that people don't care when the Africans die, but white people die, and it's 90% of the news for weeks.
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High speed trains are not economically viable in the US, even with the trackbed being untaxed or taxed far below adjacent properties. No rational company would try to build a high speed rail line; they only get built if a wacky political elite pushes it against public opposition.
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Who murdered Mary Jo Kopechne, and what party was he?
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High speed trains have been attacked -- a French TGV was bombed in 1983. Two people were killed by the bomb.
At the same time a bomb, placed by the same group, went of in a toilet in a railway station -- it killed 3 people.
So toilets are better targets than high speed trains.
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That's because the US has Greens while France doesn't. We can only dream of being 85 percent nuclear.
So, how many seats did the US Green party get in the last elections? Here in France they have 17 MP's, 12 senators and 6 MEP's.
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