@sidereal Except the passenger carriages would still...

@sidereal Except the passenger carriages would still be coupled to the loco, and couplings are designed not to break easily because they have to be able to handle the combination of the tractive effort of the loco plus whatever forces are acting in the opposite direction. Splitting points doesn’t result in a nice neat detachment or a catch point style derailment, it makes a heck of a mess.

My preferred train nerd answer to the stupid trolley problem is “neither, as rail vehicles like this are equipped with multiple emergency braking systems and safety devices thanks to 180 years of strict government regulation and accident research”.

Like 19 January at 8:28 | Wall-to-wall | Open on blat.at

3 comments

jack will miss this server

@m @sidereal the railways reaching the Old West initially had less capable couplings and brakes, though, right?

19 January at 12:57 | Open on strangeobject.space

Major Denis Bloodnok

@m @sidereal If you want to rob the train, do you care? (In particular, cold-bloodedly, submitting all the passengers to a shaking-around reduces the odds that they interfere...)

19 January at 15:17 | Open on mendeddrum.org

Mike Knell

@denisbloodnok Depends. Actually killing them when the train jackknifes would cause problems- but yeah, in general the best way to rob a train has always been to find a point (aha) where it isn’t going to be going very fast and forcing it to stop. And trains back then didn’t exactly speed down the line by modern standards.

19 January at 15:58 | Open on blat.at