Derailments - US-UK comparison

[fairysdad]

Not entirely sure if this should be here or in UK (but as well as a question about US railroads [sic] it's a comparison with the UK railways).

I came across this on Reddit earlier on: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1exnwz/never_seen_this_before/

Pertinent messages include:

I worked for UPS when I was in my late teens and into my early 20s. this happens a lot. Derailment doesn't mean Denzel Washington has to get involved.

Not all derailments are news worthy...I work for a Class 1 Freight Railroad and I'd guess there are roughly 3-5 derailments a week on my division alone. TBH the public never hears about 99% of the derailments that happen in a given year.

Actually...derailments happen all the time. Most don't make it into the news because they're literally nothing more than one or two axles of a locomotive taking a switch the wrong way and going on the ground, which is fixed within about an hour or two depending on location.

My questions are, is this actually that common an event in the US? Or elsewhere in the world? Or in the UK? I know there's a difference in railway usage between the US and the UK (they're more freight based, we're more passenger based) but surely 3-5 derailments a week just in a certain area isn't really something that actually happens? Although this is Reddit, I can't imagine that it's exaggerated too much (not really that type of thread).

 

[PFX]

Do a quick search on youtube for something along the lines of 'poorly maintained railroad' or similar and you will quickly see this is a possibility. Some routes are positively hair raising even at very low speed.

That doesn't hoever, substantiate any of the claims in the article you quote.

 

[fairysdad]

How / Why do they let their railways get into such a condition?!

 

[talltim]

Because it isn't alway cost effective to maintain them. A lightly used spur to an industry that uses it once a week is not going to have money spent on it unless absolutely necessary. Low speed derailments often cause no damage and can be rectified with a jack and some big lumps of wood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txNMwminoiw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Mind you some roads, like the GRS/Pan Am have poor track on their main lines, with frequent 10mph limits (away from the lines maintained to passenger standards)
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo=2007020923422025364.jpg
Of course other lines are maintained to higher standards than
much of the UK. The mainlines across the Midwest are designed to take frequent long high speed (70mph+)freights, with heavier weight track than any here, any derailments there cost big money in both damage and disruption

 

[fairysdad]

But there are 'lightly used spurs' to industries in Britain with once a week traffic on it which is maintained to a higher standard. I know that a low-speed derailment can be easily rectified (well, I know it since reading the Reddit post!); I just can't understand why they let the tracks get into such a state even if it is easy to fix the effect rather than the cause. I realise that there are probably many more miles of track to maintain in the US than over here, and that much of the network is for freight rather than passenger (I cannot imagine that there is a passenger service over this badly maintained track!).

Just seems a bit weird to me!