Talk:List of accidents on Amtrak

Amtrak Collisions Add to list

July 4,1984-Two people sitting in a parked truck died when the truck was hit by an Amtrak train in Elgin,S.C. July 11,1984-Amtrak's Silver Star hit a tanker truck at a grade crossing in McBee,S.C.,killing two people, the engineer and the truck driver. July 23,1984-Two Amtrak trains collided head-on on a viaduct 80 feet above a Queens street in NYC, killing one man and injuring 125.

Sources:New York Times Archives,July 24,1984, pages 1 and 2.2601:581:8500:949C:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2017 (UTC) Done.2601:581:8500:949C:39FA:CD16:345:9C16 (talk) 20:03, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

What is a significant accident?

When should a collision or accident be added to this list? The list as it exists now appears to be haphazard. If the collisions and derailments detailed in this Washington Post article [1] were listed the list on this page would have hundreds of entries. One suggestion would be to only list accidents that are the subject of an NTSB investigation. What do others think? FFM784 (talk) 20:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I very much agree - this list needs pared down. I would only include incidents that caused one or more deaths aboard the train, or a significant number of injuries (at least 25 or so; the Night Owl in 1990 and the Colonial in 1992 are good examples). Perhaps we could include other incidents that generated significant press coverage due to the circumstances, but the only of those I can think of are Crozet in 2018, and the 2005 crash in Waterford, and that's a harder criteria to formalize. Grade crossing incidents and minor derailments with few or no injuries aboard the train are not notable enough for this list.

I'd also like to reformat it as a sortable table. Columns: Date (wikilinked to article if it exists) | Train | Location | Type of incident | Deaths and injuries | Brief description | NTSB report link. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:16, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest that the list be converted into a list of Amtrak accidents investigated by the NTSB. Setting the bar at this level makes it easy to decide what should and should not be included on the list. Otherwise it will be difficult to decided what it a significant accident, because even one death is of course significant to someone. I also agree that the list should be converted into a table. FFM784 (talk) 23:31, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Its also useful I think to look a similar lists on Wikipedia, including List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft and List of accidents and incidents involving airliners by airline.FFM784 (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The bar for an NTSB investigation is actually rather low - US law just says "a railroad accident in which there is a fatality or substantial property damage, or that involves a passenger train". So that might actually be too loose for this list, and result in too many minor injury incidents being included - not to mention that the NTSB investigates the numerous grade crossing incidents and trespasser strikes that we don't want to include here. Additionally, it's not always clear whether an incident was investigated by the NTSB - they don't do a good job having all the reports online. I think "death or at least ten injuries on board the train" (perhaps 20) is an easier criteria to manage. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:14, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the NTSB does not normally investigate grade crossing accidents and trespasser strikes unless they decide to launch a major investigation, which is rare. Most of the time grade crossing and trespasser incidents are investigated by local, state, and railroad police departments. With that said, I'm okay with a numeric threshold so long as there is also a condition that would allow for any NTSB investigated accident to also be included on the list.FFM784 (talk) 13:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I have completed conversion to a table, including the addition of numerous incidents and the removal of minor incidents, as well as adding a lede section. All but a handful (a few early ones, some grade crossing accidents, and the two sabotage incidents) have NTSB accident reports linked. There are six additional incidents I found with NTSB reports but less than 20 injuries:

• RAR-81-05: 6 injuries
• RAR-81-09: 18 injuries
• RAR-84-01: 16 injuries
• RAR-91-01-SUM: 2 injuries
• RAR-01-01: 15 injuries
• RAB-06-08: 9 injuries
• RAB-13-06: 13 injuries
• RAB-17-03: 7 injuries

I would not necessarily be opposed to adding these to the list, but I'm not sure they're necessary either. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 09:40, 23 February 2020 (UTC)