Train Wreck: The Forensics of Rail Disasters

Gripping forensic tales explain how and why trains crash.

Trains are massive―with some weighing 15,000 tons or more. When these metal monsters collide or go off the rails, their destructive power becomes clear. In this book, George Bibel presents riveting tales of trains gone wrong, the detective work of finding out why, and the safety improvements that were born of tragedy.

Train Wreck details numerous crashes, including 17 in which more than 200 people were killed. Readers follow investigators as they sift through the rubble and work with computerized event recorders to figure out what happened. Using a mix of eyewitness accounts and scientific explanations, Bibel draws us into a world of forensics and human drama.

Train Wreck is a fascinating exploration of
• runaway trains
• bearing failures
• metal fatigue
• crash testing
• collision dynamics
• bad rails

George Bibel is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of North Dakota. He is the author of Beyond the Black Box: The Forensics of Airplane Crashes and the coauthor of Plane Crash: The Forensics of Aviation Disasters.