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Apparently accounting for all the victims of train wrecks is a rather difficult task, given the poor accounting of the exact number of people aboard a passenger train at a certain time. Some accounts record the worst wreck of all time as being when a train fell off a bridge into the Bagmati River in India in 1981 (supposedly after braking to avoid hitting a cow on the tracks). At least 500 people likely died, and possibly more considering the haphazard crowding of passengers aboard Indian trains. Other accounts cite the 1917 derailment of a troop train near Modane, France, in which about 420 people died. (Again, some claim many more were killed.) Apparently the train was too heavy to brake properly on a steep downgrade and could not either due to the tight wartime schedule. World War I's unprecedented effect on rail systems worldwide unfortunately produced also the worst rail disaster in U.S. history (a collision between a troop train and another passenger train near Nashville in 1918, killing 101), and in British history (a triple collision involving a troop train near Gretna, Scotland in 1915, killing over 200). It partly adds to my feeling that World War I was one of the most unnecessary wars ever to take place. If not for the collective greed and hypernationalism of the British, French, German, Austrian, and Russian elites, we would not have had Hitler, World War II, the Soviet Union, or those sobering train wrecks. We would all be somewhat better off now if that damned war had not taken place. Unlike with World War II, it is rather hard for me to tell who exactly was right in that conflict. The statistics for these wrecks still raise my eyebrows today. Somehow it seems almost incomprehensible (at least from my American point of view anyway) to see a train disaster producing casualties in triple digits. Of course, reading about the conditions on India's railroads, it somehow seems not quite as surprising. India's trains, tracks, and signalling equipment, so I have heard, are ridiculously antiquated. It also sounds rather frightening how they can allow so many people to cram like sardines into train cars, or even cling to the outside. I still remember a few years back (1999) when there was a pretty horrendous crash in India (I think in or near the eastern Assam state, for those who know the geography) involving two trains which collided. Something like 300 (I thought I heard once source say it was as much as 500) were killed.
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