Horrific Train Accident!

Today I witness not one but TWO terrible train accidents! I watched in kid-like delight as an old train rolled down a track on a slight decline because old trains are cool. The train tracks were very old as well, they seemed like they had been there forever. I was dismayed when the train accelerated down the track and was gaining speed as it raced towards a near 90 degree turn not far from the end of the track! What made it even worse was that the turn was on the edge of a very steep, very long fall to an unknown, but certain, destruction below. I made myself relax because I figured that many hours of research and experience had gone into the design of the track and the train and that everything would be ok. The train would hit the turn and gracefully leap around it (as I’m sure it had done thousands of times before). Still, as the train (engine only, it was pulling no load) hurtled towards the turn I nearly had to turn away because of the sense of impending horror. But, you know what they say about train-wrecks.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. First the train was going way too fast for the turn (the fault of the train designer or the track architect or maybe even an engineer inexperienced in that part of the track – why isn’t important until the investigation). When it entered the turn, it became clear that it never had a chance. The forward momentum of the engine quickly surpassed the gravitational coefficient that kept the train safely on the track and it veritably launched itself from the track, flipping end over end as gravity took hold, dragging the engine into the vast chasm. A loud crash heralded the arrival and sudden stop of the engine with the unforgiving Earth. Afterwards, it was deathly silent. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen the catastrophe; only my wife was around and she looked at me and shook her head slowly (in shock, horror and dismay, I am sure).

So, I went over and picked up the little toy engine that had fallen off the track of the wooden train set in the kid’s section of the Barnes and Nobel and set it back on top of the highest part of the track (facing the other down-slope). With a slight push, I set in motion the events that led to the second accident – which was very similar to the first. I guess the track architect at Barnes and Nobel wasn’t taking into consideration all the physics involved with track design when he put that one together.