Remembering January 4, 1987 By Carl W. Stephanus

If you ride the trains in Europe, you may often see something that might cause you to think about the 1987 accident at Chase, Maryland, in which 16 people died.  In that accident, Engineer Gates, running his freight train on a siding, passed a red signal and came to the end of the siding turnout, fouling the maintrack as an Amtrak train approached.

However, on some European railroads, the only way a train (while staying on the track) can move onto the maintrack is thru a crossover!  You will see this on industrial sidings, passing sidings and station tracks.  If an engineer ignores a red signal, his train just continues to the end of a stub track.  Similarly, on non-signaled lines, an unstopped train would also just continue going to the end to the stub track, as long as the crossover remained lined for non-diverting moves.

Sometimes the stub track (beyond the crossover) serves as a tail track to facilitate yard or station moves or as pocket track to store cars or serve an industry.

But did the European track designers select crossovers deliberately to avoid Chase-type accidents?  I do not know but I would appreciate hearing from anyone knowing those designers’ intentions.