As a welcome break from the philosophy of model railways, Allan came across these pictures in the news, of two recent train crashes. Fortunately, casualties seem to be limited. First, Switzerland, where a RhB train came off the narrow-gauge track over a ravine at Graubuenden in eastern Switzerland.
I always have this perfect picture of Swiss railways. It was a shock when I came across an article a few years ago bemoaning how poor the time-keeping was and how crowded some trains were. Here, I believe the train hit a landslip, so the accident was hard to avoid.
The second photo is from Manilla, where an LRT went through the buffers at its urban terminal. This looks like typical Manilla traffic to me! My recollection of it was dodgems at their worst. A train popping out into the road is probably a minor annoyance compared with manic minibuses, road rage with guns, typhoons and general demolition derby driving. This was one place in the world where I was very pleased to have a driver!
