This <i>seems</i> to happen fairly often (note the emphasis); things that <i>actually</i> happen often are not on the news (because <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;News_values" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;News_values</a> ).<p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_rail_accidents_(2010%E2%80%93present)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_rail_accidents_(2010%E...</a> : I have counted about 170 fatalities 2010-2016 for the whole of EU, about half of which (81) is from the 24 July 2013, Santiago de Compostela derailment, about another quarter is &quot;train hits car after driver went around the barriers,&quot; and there seem to be significant numbers of sabotage (about 20 fatalities).
In that, I have counted only 5 train-to-train crashes (Buizingen, Szczekociny, Sloterdijk, Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Bad Aibling).<p>See also this Eurostat report: even for the deadliest year for a long time (the Santiago derailment again), train collisions accounted for 101 deaths per year.
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ec.europa.eu&#x2F;eurostat&#x2F;statistics-explained&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;Transport_accident_statistics#Railway_accident_statistics" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ec.europa.eu&#x2F;eurostat&#x2F;statistics-explained&#x2F;index.php&#x2F;...</a><p>You are quite correct that this is a well-understood problem, one that is prevented millions of time per day as the absolute baseline of any railway system. Of course, <i>when</i> it happens, it makes the news - precisely because it&#x27;s so rare. If two cars collide and people die, that&#x27;s not news - that happens all the time (at least 27 101 people in 2013, across 23 EU member states).