Crash Worthiness Standards

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Green Maned Lion

Green Maned Lion

Engineer
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
8,333
Location
NJ
That thing isn't modern. It's a Bombardier bi-level, whose robust construction (or lack thereof) was responsible for the bulk of deaths at Chatsworth.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
That thing isn't modern. It's a Bombardier bi-level, whose robust construction (or lack thereof) was responsible for the bulk of deaths at Chatsworth.
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It's the FRA regulations to which it was built that are the problem, not the manufacturer.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
Nonsense. Car mabufacturers are not required to do no more than minimum safety.
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There is complaint by many that the US safety standards are too high. I am not believing that, particularly after seeing what happens during and post accident.with some of these cars built to these wonderful EN safety standards. Generally I consider the NTSB if anything demanding too much. Read some of their reports and you should see that. However, you can't protect everything from everything.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
Nonsense. Car mabufacturers are not required to do no more than minimum safety.
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Designing to FRA requirements can result in a less safe design. But, if you believe the problem is with Bombardier in particular, do please post your evidence of how and why Bombardier designs are less safe.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
Nope. But they do what their bosses tell them to.
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I would strongly suggest that you go through some of these reports in detail end to end before making these boderline if not past borderline libelious statements. At the least you should be able to cite examples to support your claims. If there is any bias in their railroad accident reports that I have noticed it is somewhat of a pro-labor tilt, and I have been reading these things for years. They tend to make recommendations concerning equipment requirements and sometimes in other areas as well that go beyond what I would consider practical limits in strength and passenger survivability.

These reports specifically cannot be used as references in legal actions. However, that does not mean that they leave the trail of breadcrumbs for others to follow to find things that can be used in legal actions.

The main thing I have noticed about these things is that by the time they are done usually everything involved has been analyzed very thoroughly. Also, it is quite common for them to include definition of terms that are common in the railroad industry but not easily understood by those that are outside the industry but will be looking at these reports.
 
FRA regs are based on theories of crash physics which were decades out of date when the regs were made in the 20s and 40s. They have been *shown* in *tests* to make railcars less safe in crashes than standard European designs.

Just for reference.
 
neroden said:
FRA regs are based on theories of crash physics which were decades out of date when the regs were made in the 20s and 40s. They have been *shown* in *tests* to make railcars less safe in crashes than standard European designs.

Just for reference.
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How about listing some of these references? The US regulations may have first been put in place in the 1920's but they have been updated considerably since. If you think the european equipment result in such crashworthy vehicles I would suggest that you watch the videos of the Spanish derailment when overspeed on the curve, and then find some of the pictures of the eqipment post crash at Eschede. That one is particularly frightening. You can see cars in the picture where the roof to sides and sides to floor welds unzipped, eliminating all encapsulization of the passengers. When you can find some regulations that will prevent reoccurance of these sorts of accident results, call me.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
That thing isn't modern. It's a Bombardier bi-level, whose robust construction (or lack thereof) was responsible for the bulk of deaths at Chatsworth.
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At the risk of being accused of over feeding the troll, I suspect the rather unprofessional engineer busy texting his railfan chums might be more to blame than any perceived design flaw of railroad car. But you knew that anyway didn't you?
 
George Harris said:
neroden said:
FRA regs are based on theories of crash physics which were decades out of date when the regs were made in the 20s and 40s. They have been *shown* in *tests* to make railcars less safe in crashes than standard European designs.

Just for reference.
Click to expand...
How about listing some of these references? The US regulations may have first been put in place in the 1920's but they have been updated considerably since. If you think the european equipment result in such crashworthy vehicles I would suggest that you watch the videos of the Spanish derailment when overspeed on the curve, and then find some of the pictures of the eqipment post crash at Eschede. That one is particularly frightening. You can see cars in the picture where the roof to sides and sides to floor welds unzipped, eliminating all encapsulization of the passengers. When you can find some regulations that will prevent reoccurance of these sorts of accident results, call me.
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Don't let your anti European blinkers blind you to fact that it's generally better to not have a head on collision with an oncoming freight train, George.
 
Train person said:
George Harris said:
neroden said:
FRA regs are based on theories of crash physics which were decades out of date when the regs were made in the 20s and 40s. They have been *shown* in *tests* to make railcars less safe in crashes than standard European designs.

Just for reference.
Click to expand...
How about listing some of these references? The US regulations may have first been put in place in the 1920's but they have been updated considerably since. If you think the european equipment result in such crashworthy vehicles I would suggest that you watch the videos of the Spanish derailment when overspeed on the curve, and then find some of the pictures of the eqipment post crash at Eschede. That one is particularly frightening. You can see cars in the picture where the roof to sides and sides to floor welds unzipped, eliminating all encapsulization of the passengers. When you can find some regulations that will prevent reoccurance of these sorts of accident results, call me.
Click to expand...
Don't let your anti European blinkers blind you to fact that it's generally better to not have a head on collision with an oncoming freight train, George.
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Sounds like the old debate of whether it is more effective to put emphasis on crash prevention, or crash survivability....in the automotive world, both have come a long way with new technology. Sadly, (or perhaps wisely), they have not put much into improving driver skills, but rather have let technology take driver skills out of the equation.
 
True to some extant....enthusiastic driver's like to completely control the car they are driving, rather than 'go along for the ride' in a semi-automated car, but that will probably change to all automated in the future.

As for older versus newer, well I wouldn't want to go back to non-radial tires, drum brakes, worm and roller steering, and other antiquities. And while I enjoy 'rowing my own', (manual transmission with a clutch pedal), I do like safety advances like ABS, seat belts, air bags, and other safety advances in the modern car.
 

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