Japanese Derailment

Interesting news from Japan over the weekend . . .. Saturday's earthquake 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, in addition to causing a lot of destruction, also derailed a bullet train, though no passengers were injured. So? So, since the Japanese bullet trains began service forty years ago this month (for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics), this is the first time any of them has ever derailed! And it took a natural disaster to do it! Compare that to the safety record of Amtrak, which has had several derailments, some of them fatal. They always seem to happen on freight lines Amtrak rents for its routes, though the freight railroad companies never bother maintaining the track and Amtrak always ends up being responsible. Amtrak not only needs a more modern train fleet, it needs to own and operate its own tracks, so it can become the world-class national passenger railroad system it so desperately wants to be.

True, trains on the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor, including the 150-mph Acela trains, have great safety records. But could a train that goes more than twice as fast as the Acelas, like French trains do, handle the aging Northeast Corridor track? Doubtful. :-(