Could two metro trains collide?
Following the collision of two New York subway trains this week, the question is asked whether two metro trains could collide here. There has never been such an incident here, and there are means in place to ensure there never will be.
Nicholas 13:04 on 2024-01-06 Permalink
It’s impossible to say it could never happen, but our metro is automated (the drivers only drive it in special situations), and the systems are designed, generally, to not proceed from a station if even the next station (or anywhere before that) has a train. In most of the NYC system, they use track signals and manually drive the train. In this case, there was a breakdown, trains were redirected onto an express track, then a flagger was out and both trains started moving at the same time onto the local track and the driver of the broken train was in the cab in the middle of the train so didn’t see the flagger. (NYC mostly using two staff per train is a worldwide-unique and -bad practice.) It’s just a lot of unique circumstances that all can’t happen here. A crash is never impossible, but here is much less likely.