I’ve spent a good part of my writing life on a train. My debut novel, “Tracks: A Novel in Stories,” which was covered years ago by The Baltimore Sun, is set on a train full of strangers riding from Baltimore to Chicago, a route I’ve ridden myself.
The Oct. 28 news from Spain hit hard. Near the town of Urda, south of Madrid, a high-speed train plowed into the back of a stopped train, derailing two cars and killing at least 69 people. It was the second disaster this year on Spain’s high-speed corridor between Madrid and Andalusia. In January, a derailment and collision near Adamuz killed 46, and investigators pointed to a rail that had broken before the train passed over it.
Spain owes the families answers. Two catastrophes on one corridor in nine months demand a hard look at how that line is maintained and run.
Images like the ones from Urda also make people think twice about stepping onto any platform, including ours. I understand the impulse. The numbers argue for getting back on board.
Marylanders know rail tragedy firsthand. In January 1987, an Amtrak train collided with Conrail locomotives at Chase, in eastern Baltimore County, killing 16 people. In 1996, a MARC commuter train collided with Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Capitol Limited in Silver Spring, killing 11. In 2015, a Washington-to-New York Amtrak train, a run plenty of Baltimoreans know well, derailed in Philadelphia after entering a curve at more than twice the speed limit, killing eight.
The takeaway is that people make mistakes, not that trains are unsafe. Federal investigators concluded that positive train control, which can slow or stop a train automatically, would have prevented that Philadelphia crash. It is now required on main lines that carry passengers.
Here is what the wreckage photos don’t show: Over the past decade, people in cars and SUVs died at more than 17 times the rate of train passengers per mile traveled, according to the National Safety Council. In the European Union, car occupants die at roughly 28 times the rate of rail passengers, according to 2019 European Commission figures. In Europe, only airline passengers do better than rail riders.
Closer to home, Maryland’s roads killed 480 people last year. That was a decade low and a real achievement, and it is still several times the toll at Urda. Those deaths arrive one or two at a time, so they rarely lead the news the way a train derailment does. But your chances of dying on the way to the train station are likely higher than dying on the train.
I’m not an engineer. I’m a novelist and travel writer who has logged a lot of rail miles, on frequent trips in Russia, across Europe and on Amtrak here in the states. On a train, I can read or write the whole way and look up to find I’ve arrived. Nobody has to white-knuckle a steering wheel through I-95 traffic. And I feel safe. Even in light of news headlines about derailments and train collisions, trains are one of the safest ways to travel.
So my response to Urda is this: Grieve the dead and fix what failed. Then keep getting back on board the train.
Maryland can help by funding the unglamorous work, such as gates at dangerous crossings and steady maintenance on MARC and light rail. Riders can help by showing up. Amtrak carried passengers on a record 34.5 million trips in fiscal year 2025, and strong ridership builds the case for the investments that make trains safer still.
In “Tracks: A Novel in Stories,” the train becomes more than transportation: It is where strangers become characters in each other’s stories and where the train and the cities it connects all become characters themselves. I still feel that every time I step onto a platform. I’ll be back aboard soon with a notebook and a window seat, and I hope others will be along for the ride.
Eric D. Goodman (www.EricDGoodman.com) is the author of seven books, including the award-winning “Tracks: A Novel in Stories,” and cohosts Baltimore’s Lit & Art Reading Series at the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower. He lives in Glen Arm.