A high-speed rail collision near Toledo, Spain, has prompted renewed discussion about whether where passengers sit affects their chances of surviving a train crash. At least 69 people were killed when one train struck another that had stopped on the tracks.
A commonly cited rule of thumb is to avoid the front and very rear of a train and sit somewhere in the middle, preferably facing backward. Rail safety experts, however, say that guidance has significant limits because crashes differ widely in their causes and dynamics.
The Spanish accident was a rear-end impact, a type of collision in which seat location can produce different outcomes from those seen in a derailment or another kind of accident. Experts said choosing a seat may influence a passenger’s odds at the margins, but the nature of the crash matters far more.
John Goglia, an independent safety consultant and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the safest position depends on the type of crash. He emphasized that there is no seat that can be considered universally safe.
Robert Paaswell, a distinguished emeritus professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York, noted that serious train crashes are rare and that their circumstances vary. In a rear-end collision like the one in Spain, he said, the front of the train that was struck would have been the safer location. Passengers, however, could not have known in advance what kind of accident was about to occur.
Sources: The New York Times Travel.