Who needs terrorists when our own stupidity and negligence does damage like this?
You got it.
I even had seen a CNN video showing a security camera showing what looked like that train going way too fast.
I’ve been worrying about terrorism and trains for a while now. Given the security at airports, they are a perfect target, and could make for a spectacular attack.
My father used to investigate train wrecks for the union back before terrorism was much of a concern. Yes, he was a union man, but it didn’t rub off on me permanently. He used to take my brother and me along since he’d be gone for several days sometimes, and there was nowhere else for us to go.
I saw the aftermath of several minor derailments. But the most spectacular happened on a curve at the bottom of a long hill. It was out by Dodge City, I think. The engineer had been drinking, speeding and engineering. Took over a hundred cars into a ravine at 80 or 90 mph. It was a freight train, so there were only two or three deaths, iirc, but the property damage was awesome. The ravine looked like a little hole in the ground that had had a hundred unbelievably mangled cars thrown into it. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to untangle them and get them out of there. I never got to see how it was done, either. The big bosses were pi$$ed that dad had brought along children with him and sent all three of us packing. They didn’t fire him, but he never worked another wreck.
Anyway, the right train, the right location, the right tankers, could be pretty grim.