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24-623: The Great East Thompson Train Wreck was a large rail disaster which occurred in East Thompson , Connecticut , on December 4, 1891. It was one of the most extensive train wrecks in American history, and the first of two to involve four trains. It happened on the New York and New England Railroad , which provided a shortcut from New York City to Boston by making a diagonal across Connecticut. The railroad

48-469: A driver turns into the wrong side of the road. Considerable importance is placed on designing ramp terminals and intersections to prevent these incidents. This often takes to form of special signage at freeway off-ramps to discourage drivers from going the wrong way. Section 2B.41 of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices describes how such signs should be placed on American highways. Neither vehicle in

72-458: A head-on collision need be a "car"; the Puisseguin road crash was between a truck and a coach. Sideswipe collisions are where the sides of two vehicles travelling in the same or opposite directions touch. They differ from head-on collisions only in that one vehicle impacts the side of the other vehicle rather than the front. Severity is usually lower than a head-on collision, since it tends to be

96-488: A major error. Head-on collisions may also occur at junctions, for similar reasons. In the early days of railroading in the United States, such collisions were quite common and gave to the rise of the term "Cornfield Meet". As time progressed and signalling became more standardized, such collisions became less frequent. Even so, the term still sees some usage in the industry. The origins of the term are not well known, but it

120-552: A solid wall or other stationary near-immovable object such as a bridge abutment, then the equivalent collision is one in which the moving vehicle is only traveling at 50 mph., except for the case of a lighter car colliding with a heavier one. The television show MythBusters performed a demonstration of this effect in a 2010 show. In France, in the years 2017 and 2018, 2563 and 2556 head-on collisions ( collision frontales ) outside built-up area outside motorways killed 536 and 545 people respectively. They represent about 16% of all

144-409: Is a traffic collision where the front ends of two vehicles such as cars, trains, ships or planes hit each other when travelling in opposite directions, as opposed to a side collision or rear-end collision . With railways, a head-on collision occurs most often on a single line railway. This usually means that at least one of the trains has passed a signal at danger , or that a signalman has made

168-432: Is attributed to crashes happening in rural America where farming and cornfields were common. The first known usage of the term was in the mid-19th century. The distance required for a train to stop is usually greater than the distance that can be seen before the next blind curve, which is why signals and safeworking systems are so important. Note: if the collision occurs at a station or junction, or trains are travelling in

192-636: Is because they have similar causes, if different consequences. The driver of a vehicle fails to stay centered in their lane, and either leaves the roadway, or crosses the centerline, possibly resulting in a head-on or sideswipe collision, or, if the vehicle avoids oncoming traffic, a run-off-road crash on the far side of the road. Preventive measures include traffic signs and road surface markings to help guide drivers through curves, as well as separating opposing lanes of traffic with wide central reservation (or median ) and median barriers to prevent crossover incidents. Median barriers are physical barriers between

216-498: Is now abandoned, and most of its tracks removed. On the morning of December 4, 1891, four trains were scheduled to pass through East Thompson, in the town of Thompson in the northeastern corner of Connecticut: the hotshot Long Island & Eastern States Express from New York to Boston via a ferry across Long Island Sound ; the Norwich Steamboat Express traveling to Boston from the quays of New London, Connecticut ;

240-406: Is that this over-representation is because the relative velocity of vehicles travelling in opposite directions is high. While it is true (via Galilean relativity ) that a head-on crash between two vehicles traveling at 50 mph is equivalent to a moving vehicle running into a stationary one at 100 mph, it is clear from basic Newtonian Physics that if the stationary vehicle is replaced with

264-554: The East Thompson station, the two freight trains collided head-on violently, jackknifing several cars and tossing one across both eastbound and westbound tracks. Meanwhile, the Eastern States Express approached at 50 mph, unaware of the disaster. It crashed into the car across the other track, causing the engine to derail and strike a telephone pole, killing engineer Harry Tabor and fireman Gerry Fitzgerald. (Fitzgerald

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288-459: The Eastern States Express. A third man, R.H. Rath of New York, was presumed dead, but his body was never found. (It has been suggested Rath was not on the train, as he reappears very much alive in legal documents more than three years after the disaster.) Windham County coroner A.G. Bill ruled engineer Henry Wildes and conductor William Dorman of the 212 responsible for the deaths of Tabor and Fitzgerald. The station has since been torn down, and

312-465: The Netherlands and Sweden have shown that there is a pressing need to find better median (central reservation), run-off and junction protection at reasonable cost on single carriageway roads. Another form of head-on crash is the wrong-way entry crash , where a driver on a surface road turns onto an off-ramp from a motorway or freeway , instead of the on-ramp. They can also happen on divided arterials if

336-583: The Southbridge Local freight to the town of that name just over the Massachusetts border; and freight train No. 212. To keep the slower No. 212 from impeding the approaching Eastern States Express, the local dispatcher allowed 212 to run on the left-hand track ahead of the express. Unfortunately both the dispatcher and 212's crew had forgotten about the oncoming Southbridge Local freight. At 6:40 am, just before

360-528: The Tri-State Marker, a small obelisk-shaped monument at the intersection of the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island state borders. Rail disaster Classification of railway accidents , both in terms of cause and effect, is a valuable aid in studying rail (and other) accidents to help to prevent similar ones occurring in the future. Systematic investigation for over 150 years has led to

384-461: The fatalities including the ones on motorways and within built-up area. In Quebec, head-on collisions are involved in eight per cent of work-related issues, but this figure rises to 23 per cent when the vehicles involved are in a rural zone where the maximum speed is greater than 70 km/h (43 mph). Head-on collisions, sideswipes, and run-off-road crashes all belong to a category of crashes called lane-departure or road-departure crashes. This

408-528: The former New York & New England Railroad through this area is now traversed by the Air Line State Park rail trail , where displays and photo dioramas provide trail users with information about the train wreck. The location of the wreck was N 42° 00.530 W 071° 48.557 which now falls on the intersection of E. Thompson Road and New Road near the Rhode Island border. Close by is a trail loop leading to

432-550: The four main crash types, including head-on collisions. The Head-on Crash element of the RPS measures how well traffic lanes are separated. Motorways generally have crash protection features in harmony with the high speeds allowed. The Star Rating results show that motorways generally score well with a typical 4-star rating even though their permitted speeds are the highest on the network. But results from Star Rating research in Britain, Germany,

456-414: The lanes of traffic, such as concrete barriers or cable barriers . These are actually roadside hazards in their own right, but on high speed roads, the severity of a collision with a median barrier is usually lower than the severity of a head-on crash. The European Road Assessment Programme 's Road Protection Score ( RPS ) is based on a schedule of detailed road design elements that correspond to each of

480-608: The last moment. Head-on collisions are an often fatal type of road traffic collision. The NHTSA defines a head-on collision thusly: Refers To A Collision Where The Front End Of One Vehicle Collides With The Front End Of Another Vehicle While The Two Vehicles Are Traveling In Opposite Directions. In Canada, in 2017, 6,293 vehicles and 8,891 persons were involved in head-on collision, injuring 5,222 persons and killing 377 other. U.S. statistics show that in 2005, head-on crashes were only two per cent of all crashes, yet accounted for ten per cent of U.S. fatal crashes. A common misconception

504-665: The railways' excellent safety record (compared, for example, with road transport ). Ludwig von Stockert (1913) proposed a classification of accidents by their effects (consequences); e.g. -on-collisions , rear-end collisions , derailments . Schneider and Mase (1968) proposed an additional classification by causes; e.g. driver 's errors, signalmen 's errors, mechanical faults. Similar categorisations had been made by implication in previous books e.g. Rolt (1956), but Stockert's and Schneider/Mase's are more systematic and complete. With minor changes, they represent best knowledge. Other Head-on collision A head-on collision

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528-446: The rear of the Eastern States Express, setting fire to the rear sleeping car and the engine cab. Fortunately the crew suffered only cuts and scrapes. All four engines, the sleeper, and a baggage car were destroyed, the track was torn up for about 500 yards (460 m) east of the passenger station, and hundreds of people were injured in the wreck. Miraculously, only two people were confirmed dead: Harry Taber and Gerry Fitzgerald of

552-425: The same direction, then the collision is not a pure head-on collision and the driver of Stoptrein 4116, lack of ATB Conductor error With shipping, there are two main factors influencing the chance of a head-on collision. Firstly, even with radar and radio, it is difficult to tell what course the opposing ships are following. Secondly, big ships have so much momentum that it is very hard to change course at

576-470: Was actually substituting for Mike Flynn, who had been scheduled but was marked off the roster since he had had a premonition of disaster the night before.) Steam from the ruptured engine destroyed a nearby home. Then the uninjured crewmen remembered the Norwich Steamboat Train. A flagman was sent out, but was too late to get the speeding express to stop. At 6:45 AM, it plowed eight feet into

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