Perhaps modern day railroads do not encounter anything so catastrophic as the rerouted steam locomotive that caused a mountain to collapse in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but train crashes are still a major problem in the United States. Train crashes injure more than 500 people every year, though deaths remain relatively rare. Aside from catastrophic collisions, railroad deaths usually occur at crossings, where the train’s course crosses the path of car traffic. The chances of dying in a car-train crash are ten times more likely than dying in a regular car collision.
Settlements with railroad companies for crashes can amount in the millions of dollars, but this just reflects the severity of injuries incurred in such accidents and of course the expertise of your railroad injury attorney. Trains are currently set up in compartments to reduce the distance people would fly in the event of a major collision. However, safety experts with the Federal Railroad Association have conducted full-scale crashes and found that the dummies in such seats were flung up and over the backs of the seat compartments, some striking luggage racks. Seatbelts would prevent this sort of injury, but they are not a standard installment of most trains.