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Physical infrastructure can be fragile/fail catastrophically, as well. I recall starting a job near Seattle, 40 miles from my home in Olympia, WA and a passenger train derailed onto the highway killing a few people and backing up traffic for days. That was not a pleasant first day!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailme...




Damn this made me read a lot about this specific derailment, but also about Puget Sound, Salish Sea, Positive train control and all this 220-MHz stuff.

Thanks!


I assume, however, that this didn't ground every single train in the state!


I believe most trains in the world are grounded to this day.

(Mixed metaphors always make me smile.)


Electrified trains have a lot of potential...


But they make it impossible to run short trains...


No but the failure caused a halt to all motor traffic on I5 in both directions which is possibly even more catastrophic than stopping the entire train system.




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