The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) is a branch of the United States Department of Transportation that analyzes and compiles information about the nation’s transportation systems.

Since 1975, the agency has been tracking train derailments, as well as injuries and fatalities that have happened during train crashes.

From 1990, the first year the BTS began tracking derailments and injuries on a yearly basis, to 2021, there have been 54,539 accidents in which a train derailed. That’s an average of 1,704 derailments per year.

Those numbers might seem pretty staggering, but derailments vary in severity and only a portion result in injuries. During that same time frame, 5,547 people were injured when a train derailed, or about 174 per year. Even then, much of that data is skewed due to a 2002 derailment in North Dakota in which a hazardous materials spill injured more than 1,400 people, BTS said.

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