So far we've had two major rail disasters in Europe this year, and it appears that there was only one in all of 1999 and one in 1998. Maybe not significant, but maybe it will be if we get a third or fourth.

The Russian accident which killed people was blamed on, "possible" Y2k problems, of course. Polly is convinced such things can't happen but the **record** proves him wrong.

From the BBC:

**************** Below is a reminder of some other major rail disasters:

In January this year, two passenger trains collided in Norway, 150km (100 miles) north of Oslo, overturning several coaches and setting off a huge blaze. A total of 19 people died.

Last October, 31 people were killed when a high-speed passenger train approaching London's Paddington Station was in collision with a local commuter train.

In June 1998, more than 100 people were killed when a German high-speed train travelling from Munich to Hamburg went off the rails at Eschede.

Germany suffered another major rail disaster in 1967, when a train collided with another carrying petrol tanks near the city of Magdeburg, causing an explosion that killed 94 people.

The most horrific European rail accident of recent years happened in Russia in June 1989. A gas explosion erupted beneath two trains carrying more than 1,200 people near the town of Ufa, killing about 400 and injuring 600.

Days later the country suffered another tragedy when 31 people died and 66 were injured when an express train ploughed into a bus which had stalled on a level crossing in southern Russia.

The UK's worst crash remains the collision between a passenger train and a wooden prop in Gretna Green in Scotland in May 1915, which claimed 227 lives.

The UK capital has also suffered its share of fatal smashes. A total of 112 people were killed and 340 hurt in a crash at Harrow and Wealdstone in north west London in October 1952.

The Clapham Junction crash in December 1988 killed 35 people when three morning rush hour trains collided in south London.

France suffered a rash of disasters in the mid to late 1980s. Thirty three died and 165 were injured in a head-on collision between two trains in southern France in August 1985.

In September that year 43 lives were lost and 30 people were injured - 30 when a holiday express crashed near Argenton-sur-Creuse, north of Limoges.

Then in June 1988 a rush hour train ran into the back of another at Paris's Gare de Lyon killing 59.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/europe/newsid_632000/632808.stm

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), February 06, 2000

Answers

Paul, Great post! Thanks for the information.

-- Shoo (flyonthewalls@yahoo.com), February 06, 2000.

its crappy ive read em all

-- buuttalong (butt@pussymail.com), May 13, 2004.