Train wreck
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A train wreck or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track; or an accident, such as when a train wheel jumps off a track in a derailment; or when a boiler explosion occurs. Train wrecks have often been widely covered in popular media and in folklore.
Legal consequences
Because train wrecks usually cause widespread property damage as well as injury or death, the intentional wrecking of a train in regular service is often treated as an extremely serious crime. For example, in the U.S. state of California, the penalty for intentionally causing a non-fatal train wreck is life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. For a fatal train wreck, the possible sentences are either life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, or death.
See also
- Emergency management
- Head-on collision
- The crash at Crush, Texas, an intentional train wreck conducted as a publicity stunt
- The folk song "Wreck of the Tennessee Gravy Train", about politicians and bank failures
