At least 18 killed, 171 injured after express train derails in Taiwan

Tragic.

What exactly caused this wreck? I'm about to ride the shink today and this isn't something I'm really happy to be reading about right now.

Interesting to know which carriages the people died or were injured? I always sit just behind the wings on jumbo jets.

What exactly caused this wreck? I'm about to ride the shink today and this isn't something I'm really happy to be reading about right now.

That is still to be determined. But you dont have to worry. The shinkansen and this train are fundamentally completely different. This is a TEMU2000 series built by Nippon Sharyo specifically for this train line, its not operational anywhere else in the world. Its also not a shinkansen style train but an express tilting train meant to be run on upgraded highspeed ground level tracks, unlike the shinkansen which has purposefully built elevated track systems.

The only connection this accident has with Japan is that the train cars were built by a Japanese company.

Im not really sure why JapanToday decided my previous comment explaining this was inappropriate and removed it but..

The only connection this accident has with Japan is that the train cars were built by a Japanese company.

That's a pretty big connection, if you ask me.

That's a pretty big connection, if you ask me.

Not particularly, Japan has probably the most rolling stock manufacturers that are engaged in export markets often. Chances are it would be connected.

CRRC, Alstom-Siemens, Bombardier, Hitachi, GE are some of the biggest manufactures in the world, but Japan also has Kawasaki Heavy Industries, JTEC, Nippon Sharyo, Toshiba, Kinki Sharyo, Mitsubishi Heavy industries, Niigata Transys, and Fuji Heavy Industries.

While there are a lot of companies in the world that produce rolling stock, they do it mostly for domestic markets. Japanese firms are by far some of the most successful and safe.

Funny how most of these exported trains happen to have issues in their host countries when they never really do in Japan. My guess, maintenance of the rail line and train played a roll. This particular trains last maintenance period was in 2017. That's pretty lax by any standards and likely doesnt fall under recommendations by Nippon Sharyo

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2018/10/22/the-world-is-turned-upside-down-in-seconds-in-taiwans-worst-rail-accident-in-decades/

After checking some photos and video footage of the accident, and reading that someone said the train had already had the emergency brakes applied twice during the trip, its pretty likely that the accident was caused by the engineer trying to make up time and going into the curve too quickly. Its a pretty tight corner,

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iYPCY8lqM7W4/v1/-1x-1.jpg