Railway Accidents 1944

January 23, 2006

Derailments and accidents can happen frequently with model train sets for any number of reasons. Regardless of how good the trackwork is on your model train sets – derailments still happen. Sometimes train derailments are caused by a super-light flatcar being shoved behind a heavy boxcar, or a hopper with out-of-gauge wheelsets somewhere waiting to pick a switchpoint or be forced off the track. S-curves on model train sets can also prove a hazard for passenger cars.

Sadly, train accidents on real-sized prototype train tracks are far more serious than on model train sets.

There were at least two railway accidents in 1944:

January 16, 1944
A train crashed in Torro Tunnel in Leon Province, Spain. More than 500 were killed.

March 2, 1944
A train stalled in tunnel in Salerno, Italy, suffocating passengers. 521 die.