This paper illustrates industry opinion on railroad accidents, causes, and preventive techniques. It is a look at recent safety statistics and suggestions for improving them. Reports and studies from government agencies have indicated that the leading causes of railroad accidents are operator fatigue, poor maintenance of track, and associated infrastructure. Rail accidents occur when trains travelling on the same tracks collide or when trains derail because of technical faults in the rolling stock, the rails, or the security systems, or because of landslides, or objects obstructing the rails (possibly caused by deliberate actions of terrorist). The modern detection technology and computer simulation analysis can be used to narrow down the root cause of railroad accident. The railroad accidents could be minimized/avoided by taking strict preventive and protective measures (establishing regulations, intelligent signaling systems, training personnel) that minimize technical, human failures, and malicious attacks which involve installing a reliable alarm and security system and regular surveillance of rail installations and equipment. Based on the previous railroad accident investigation reports and findings, a preventive railroad accident plan can be developed and strictly implemented as a railroad organization policy instruction. The various innovative railroad accident prevention techniques via better practices along with technological tools can be used to find defects and faults before they reach the catastrophic failure stage.
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