Trains derail or collide, as happened recently in Sohag, southern Egypt, among the most common accidents that cause human and material losses, so experts in the field of rail transport seek to search for the most important causes behind these accidents in an effort to avoid them.

Here are the top 8 causes that experts identified for these fatal accidents:

Negligence and lack of maintenance

The absence of railway maintenance and equipment used at intersections, such as barriers and traffic lights, leads to a significant percentage of accidents, which the US Federal Railways estimated at about 29% in the United States in 2014.

Among these causes, broken bars and welding are the two most common causes of train accidents in the United States, being behind more than 15% of all derailment accidents.

Neglect and lack of maintenance may cause nearly 30% of train accidents (Reuters)

Human error

Inexperience of a train driver, along with fatigue and exhaustion, can easily lead to train accidents.

According to the Federal Railways, 38% of train accidents are caused by human error.

However, this percentage does not exceed 3.7% in the report issued by the World Railways Federation last May, based on data on accidents that occurred in 31 countries, most of them European, as well as some countries in Asia and Africa.

The difference between the two sides is due to the difference in the concept of human error.

Pedestrians and reckless drivers

A reckless or distracted pedestrian may cause a collision by standing or crossing paths at the wrong time.

In other scenarios, the driver of a car, truck, motorcycle, or other motor vehicle could cause an accident by leaving their vehicle parked on a train track.

According to the International Railways Federation, 75% of accidents were caused by trespassing on rail infrastructure by pedestrians or motorists.

Human error, reckless drivers, and an assault on the railway infrastructure cause a percentage of train accidents (Reuters)

Mechanical malfunctions

A train operator, railway personnel and the company itself can do everything in their power to follow all required safety procedures, but a train accident can still occur.

Mechanical failure and defective parts are other common causes of train collisions, but they do happen occasionally.

An analysis of accident data showed that about 16% of train accidents between 2009 and 2012 in the United States were mainly due to electrical and mechanical faults.

Defective tracks

Blockages are a common problem in tracks and can cause a train to derail, and foreign objects inadvertently left in the location where the train will pass can be deadly, so the driver must be aware of their surroundings at all times to quickly and safely manage potential dangerous situations.

However, in some cases, the driver fails to see these obstructions at all or in time to stop a collision.

Mechanical malfunctions and defective tracks can cause train accidents even in the United States (Reuters)

Unprotected railway crossings

The absence of adequate warning devices such as lights and gates at crossings is one of the relatively important causes of disasters. More than half of rail accidents in the United States and about 15% of them in European countries occur at unprotected crossings.

Suicide

US federal statistics indicate that 266 people killed themselves by standing in front of trains in 2017. The report of the International Railroad Federation states that the number of suicides that took place in the same manner in the countries covered by the statistics is nearly twice the deaths caused by the rest of the rail transport accidents.

Unfortunately, this tragic act also puts the lives of others at risk, such as train crews, emergency responders, passengers and pedestrians.

Between unprotected crossings ... to suicide accidents, the causes of train accidents vary (Reuters)

Weather

Bad weather can prevent drivers from seeing the routes they travel on, and in 2019, weather was the culprit in about 2% of train accidents, according to the international organization.