Our World

High Speed Train Crash in Germany Kills 23

On Friday the 22nd, a high speed magnetic train in Lathen Germany crashed with a maintainance vehicle on a 20 mile test track. The train rode on top of a very powerful magnetic field that held the train off of the track. This reduces the friction between the train and the track, allowing for speeds of270 miles per hour. Luckily, the train was only traveling at 125 miles per hour at the time of the accident. Unfortunately for the 23 people that were killed, that slower speed did not make a difference. One of the 23 fatalities was a 66 year old American named Ernest Lieb as well as an employee, and a mother of a 16 year old girl. Most of the names, however, have not been released. I felt horrible when I read about this accident. It already makes me feel bad when we have to read articles every day about people dying from road side bombs and terrorism in the Middle East. The fact that I now have to read about two dozen people dying in civilian train crashes, just makes things worse. It was said that the cause of the accident, was because of miscommunication by the train company, so technology cannot really be of the blame in this cituation. The train and the maintanance vehicle had no business being on the same track at the same time. The cituation reminds me of airplane accidents, where the control tower authorized a plane to enter a runway, only to be hit by another plane coming in. It is unfortunate that human error can cause such a catastrophe, however, human error always needs to be taken into concideration when developing highly sophisticated inventions such as the magnetic train. Despite this disaster, Japan is in the process of developing an even faster train, that has been clocked at upwards of 350 miles per hour.

posted by Anonymous @ 9/23/2006 11:19:00 AM