A Certain Scientific Pair Of Railgun Aces

"Hello there everyone...Keiko here...now, like I had said in the last chapter viewers...this chapter, as well as the next one...are once again going to be non action filler chapters...

So, those of you who would like to skip both this chapter, as well as the next one, you have my full permission to do so...

But anyway viewers...let us begin...

And we will first start, with talking about a few accidents, that are involving collisions at level crossings...or as I have heard they are called over in the states...grade crossings...

And to be completely plain here viewers...for those who don't know about the history of the railroads...the very first steam locomotive...was built back in 1803...by a man named Richard Trevithick...

For those who don't know Trevithick...he was born over here in the United Kingdom...in a place called Illogan, Cornwall...back in 1771...

And the locomotive that he built...was called The New Castle...and was the very first steam locomotive to do work...

And as one Bernie Kopell once said in Railway Adventures Across Europe...which for those of you viewers who don't know of that VHS Tape Series...it was a series that was from the mid 1990s...around 1995 to be more exact...

Or, as it is known by its other name...World's Greatest Train Ride Videos...

And for those who don't know of Bernie Kopell...he was best known for playing a character on The Love Boat tv series...named Doc...

But as for what he had once said, 'Britain did in fact invent the steam locomotive'...

And viewers...whatever you may attempt to contest with, in the form of a baseless argument...I am just going to stop you before you attempt to make a complete berk of yourself...The United Kingdom invented the steam locomotive, and that is the end of the conversation...

Now then viewers...on with the first level crossing related accident...We will start off...

On March 15, 1999, when Amtrak's southbound Train #59 The City of New Orleans, collided with a lorry in the village of Bourbonnais, Illinois...11 of the trains 14 carriages derailed, including both lead locomotives...killing eleven people...and injuring another 122...

All of the 11 deaths, had occurred in the third carriage of the train...Sleeper Car #32035...

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the accident attributed the cause to the truck driver trying to beat the train across a grade crossing....

The NTSB's recommendations from the accident included increased enforcement of grade crossing signals, the installation of train event recorders at all new or improved grade crossings, and procedures to provide emergency responders with accurate lists of all crew members and passengers aboard trains...

And as for the consists fate...both of Train #59's engines, were deemed a total loss, and thus, were cut up and scrapped...

And now viewers...we will now head onto the next accidents...involving what is known, as a Signal Poor Off...and a Multiple Wrong Side Failure...

In which a signal...which in this case is a semaphore signal...givew an incorrect aspect...

And viewers...we will be examining both...and we will start, with a Multiple Wrong Side Failure...

To do this, we will head back all the way to the 21st of January, in the year 1876...in an accident, that was actually Rev. W Awdry's inspiration, to The Flying Kipper episode of Thomas The Tank Engine...Yes viewers...you read that part right...this particular rail accident was the inspiration behind the wreck of The Flying Kipper...

The Abbots Ripton Rail Accident...which had occurred in the then county of Huntingdonshire, England, on the Great Northern Railway main line, previously thought to be exemplary for railway safety...In the accident, the Special Scotch Express train from Edinburgh to London was involved in a collision, during a blizzard, with a coal train. An express traveling in the other direction then ran into the wreckage...

The cause of this particular accident...was determined to be that on the night of the crash, snow had actually been forcing the arm of the semaphore signal down...and to make matters worse, ice had frozen the arm as well...so that the arm was stuck between aspects...

And back in the day...the all clear aspect on a semaphore signal...was a clear white...which in this case, proved fatal...as the point at which the ice and snow had frozen the semaphore signal arm...wound up creating a false clear aspect...which wound up causing the Special Scotch Express...to collide with a coal train...

And to make things just that much worse...an express traveling in the other direction...collided with the wreckage of the other two trains...

In total...13 people were killed...and a further 53 passengers, and 6 crew members...were injured...

But, the good news with this particular accident...is that it forced the railways...to permanently adopt a green signal, as an all clear aspect...So at least something arose from this particular tragedy...

But, as it would later be shown in the Invergowrie Train Crash on October 22, 1979...between a local train bound for Dundee...that was run into from behind by a Glasgow to Aberdeen Express...hauled by Class 47 Diesel #47208...at roughly 60 miles per hour...or roughly 95 kilometers an hour...

And the force of the collision, was so violent, that it wound up throwing the back four carriages of the Dundee bound train, off the tracks, over a nearby sea wall, and into the Firth Of Tay...

The driver, and the second man on the Aberdeen Express, were both killed on impact...and a further 3 more people were killed in the last carriage of the Dundee bound train...and a further 51 people were injured...

An investigation into the cause of the crash...revealed that the driver of the Aberdeen Express had passed a semaphore signal that had been set at danger...as it passed by a nearby signal box at Longforgan...

However, it was later revealed that the signal in question...was shown to be at what's called a 'poor off'...Or in simpler terms, is a semaphore arm stuck between an all clear aspect, and a danger aspect...

And it was theorized, that as the driver of the Aberdeen Express, approached the signal at Longforgan, at 70 miles an hour...he may have misinterpreted the poor off as a clear aspect...and as a result, accelerated through it...a similar incident to that of the Ladbroke Grove Train Crash...caused by a 'Phantom Signal' incident...of signal SN109...that would wind up killing 31 people...including the drivers of both trains...

So viewers...as I have stated before...while it is true that you can fix technology until one is blue in the face...but as for human behavior...that, can be known, to be far more challenging...I mean after all viewers...why else would most aircraft accidents...be the result of Pilot Error...

The November 12, 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 is one that immediately comes to mind...as the First Officer wound up using so much aggressive rudder inputs, that he literally tore the vertical stabilizer off of the Airbus A300B4-605R...

But anyway viewers...this now marks the end of this chapter...and so viewers...I will see you lot in the next chapter...okay?...*I proceed to say this, while smiling with both of my eyes closed, and my head tilted to one side, in a very cute looking manner*"