Category: RAIL

A train derailed into the Yellowstone River in Montana on June 24 leading state agencies to warn people not to eat fish caught in the Yellowstone River in the area where the train, which was carrying chemicals, went off the tracks, according to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The department’s staff collected five mountain whitefish and five rainbow trout below the derailment site for contaminant testing as a follow-up to the incident. The derailment caused a bridge over the Yellowstone River to collapse, sending several cars into the water, Stillwater County officials said at the time. Phenanthrene was one of the chemicals in question and is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). PAHs are found in products such as oil, gas, plastics, and pesticides.

A New York City subway rider allegedly put another man in a chokehold which ultimately resulted in the man’s death. Daniel J. Penny, 24, a U.S. Marine veteran said he was acting to protect himself and other riders and never intended harm. Jordan Neely began acting strangely according to passengers and Penny put him in a chokehold. An altercation allegedly took place prior to the move. The incident occurred Monday, May 1, on a northbound F train, according to two law enforcement officials. “When Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and the other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived,” lawyers for Penny said in a statement Friday evening. “Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.” Neely, 30, was unconscious when police arrived at the Broadway and East Houston Street subway station, and pronounced dead at a hospital, New York police said. He died from “compression of neck (chokehold)” and the manner was homicide, the city chief medical examiner’s office said. Penny was taken into custody Monday, questioned by police and released. No charges have been filed against him.

More than 280 people were killed and hundreds more injured when a passenger train derailed and struck two other trains in eastern India on June 1. The crash, in the state of Odisha, has renewed long-standing questions about safety problems in the system. Odisha’s chief secretary, Pradeep Jena, said that an additional 900 had been injured. Officials said they expected the toll to rise. The crash occurred when several cars derailed and collided with a second train, the train’s operator, South Eastern Railway, said in a statement.

As many as 12 French police officers were injured during protests against the rail link in the Alps. Around 2,000 protesters were in the Maurienne Valley protesting the construction of a rail link that includes a tunnel between Lyon and the Italian city of Turin. There were reportedly “300 dark-clad hardcore” protesters who were said to be throwing rocks at riot police. The police sprayed tear gas and one protestor was wounded, Francois Ravier, the local prefect said at a news conference. The protestors said their count of injured was 50 demonstrators, including six who were hospitalized.

Emine Yilmaz Ozsoy was shoved against a speeding subway train on her way to work. A man pushed her head into the train as it pulled out of the Lexington Avenue/63rd Street station. She underwent two surgeries, after being violently battered by the rushing train. Ozsoy remained partially paralyzed, but was gathering strength and was reported to be cognizant of what happened. The attack was carried out by Kamal Semrade, 39. New York law enforcement officers were able to arrest him at a homeless shelter near La Guardia Airport in Queens, several days after the attack. He was charged with attempted murder and held without bail.

Dozens of passengers were killed near Tempe, Greece, when two trains collided at high speed, head on. One train was carrying freight and the other carried passengers. Rescue crews searched for survivors through flattened cars as the wreckage smoked Wednesday, March 1. There were many additional passengers injured in the accident which some called the deadliest rail accident in Greece in a decade. “When something so tragic happens, it’s impossible to continue as if nothing had happened,” Kostas A. Karamanlis, Greek transport minister, said in a statement shortly after the accident as he announced he would resign. “It’s a fact that we inherited the Greek railway in a state that is not fitting for the 21st century,” he said. “In those three and a half years we made every effort to improve this reality. Unfortunately, those efforts were not adequate to avert such a tragedy.”

A large train of about 50 cars derailed in Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line. The train was carrying a freight from Madison, Ill., to Conway, Penn., according to the operator, Norfolk Southern. At the time, no information was released about what caused the derailment. Officials in the area issued an evacuation order which remained in place through Saturday morning for people within a mile of the scene. No injuries were reported. Reports say firefighters from three states (Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia) responded due to the location of the derailment about 50 miles (82 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and about 20 miles (32 km) from West Virginia. The train was carrying chemicals like vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol and monobutyl ether which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) later determined had been released into the air, surface soil and surface waters.

Webtec Corporation disclosed a data breach after a Lockbit ransomware attack in 2022. Wabtec says hackers breached their network and installed malware on specific systems as early as March 15, 2022. The U.S. rail and locomotive company disclosed a data breach that exposed personal and sensitive information. Wabtec is a U.S.-based public company producing locomotives and rail systems. The company employs approximately 25,000 people and has a presence in 50 countries, being the world’s market leader in freight locomotives and a major player in the transit segment. On June 26, Wabtec said they detected unusual activity on their network leading to an investigation of the attack and whether the hackers had stolen data. The company started sending notices of a data breach to all impacted individuals on December 30, 2022, but the exact number of people affected by the incident remains undisclosed.