I think we all need to take a step back and instead of wrangling over how much "better" the New Haven would have handled this, take a moment to appreciate the fact that we're trying to learn from our mistakes here. Everyone wants the rails to be safe. There will always be an element of "stuff happens" but when stuff does happen does it is our prerogative to make sure we didn't miss something that could have been prevented. There is a lot to be learned from an incident like this and bulldozing it for the sake of keeping the line open at all costs is far from the right approach. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure the state and those personally affected by this would like an explanation of how this happened.
And to address the subject of the M8's crashworthiness, I'm just going to say that if this happened with M2s or even older stock we would probably be looking at a much worse situation. There is a lot more engineering that goes into making a railcar safe than putting more steel on it.
And to address the subject of the M8's crashworthiness, I'm just going to say that if this happened with M2s or even older stock we would probably be looking at a much worse situation. There is a lot more engineering that goes into making a railcar safe than putting more steel on it.