Recent US Train Derailments - Accidents or Sabotage?

A commuter train that derailed at O'Hare International Airport injuring 30 rammed up an escalator at one of the world's busiest airports and would have been far worse, and likely fatal, had it not happened how and when it did, a transportation expert says. Federal investigators are saying nothing about what may have caused the Chicago Transit Authority train to jump its tracks around 3 a.m. Monday, then slice across a concrete platform and crash up a heavily used escalator that takes travelers and workers into O'Hare International Airport. Investigators were expected back on the scene Tuesday. "It is a miracle that nobody died," said an expert at DePaul University. The system is designed so that if an operator becomes incapacitated and their hand slips off the controls, the train should come to a stop. The local union president speculated that the operator fell asleep, and that upon impact, inertia may have thrown the operator against the hand switch, accelerating it onto the escalator. He said investigators planned to speak to the operator and investigate the tracks and all other possiblities. A lapse in focus has also been suggested as a possible contributing cause of a train going off the tracks in New York City last December, killing four people. A preliminary safety board report didn't mention that issue, saying excessive speed appeared to be a factor. ~~~~~ I have followed US train derailment news reports for more than a year now. Their frequency has increased recently and made me curious to look at the recent record of US train derailments. The results were surprising. If we consider the first calendar quarter (01 January through 31 March), here is the US train derailment record for the first quarter of 2010 to 2014 : In 2010, there were no train derailments. In 2011, there were 2 train derailments. In 2012, there were no train derailments. In 2013, there was 1 train derailment. In 2014, there have been 16 train derailments. Now, we might say the 2014 record was caused by the bad winter weather, but the derailments are scattered all over America, not just in areas that had excessive snowfall. Even in North Dakota, where petroleum is now bring transported by rail, the cause of the derailments was not the explosion and fire of a railcar, rather the derailment caused the petroleum railcars to explode and catch fire. ~~~~~ Dear readers, consider that in the period from 01 December 2013 to 25 March 2014, there have also been breaches of the Washington Naval Yard and the Norfolk Naval Station by armed gunmen who shot and killed people in secure areas. And consider that in relatively the same time frame, there have been 2 breaches of electrical substations by intruders whose goal was to destroy transformers - which would have brought down electricity grids in California and New Jersey if the intruders had not been stopped. What can we make of these seemingly unrelated events? Of course, we might say 'nothing' because they really may have been unrelated. On the other hand, it could be that America has been infiltrated by, or has its own homegrown, terrorists at work. They may be "practicing" by carrying out small attacks in preparation for a larger incident. The federal government has said nothing, as would be expected because if they are actively hunting the perpetrators, silence would be the norm. I must add that I have no information that would confirm a terrorist theory for these recent attacks and derailments. But, the number of incidents and their bunched occurrences does raise questions.