# Will putting a penny on a railroad track derail a train? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2002, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848 "2002-08-21T02:48:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/1 "2002-08-21T02:48:44Z")
Ok, I gotta find this out for once and for all. When I wa a little kid I put pennies on the railroad tracks all the time, without incident. But recently I heard somebody yelling at a kid near a track saying that it would derail the train. I had even seen some kids put things such as bolts onto the tracks with the same results as a penny. I knew not to put a penny on a track where a train would go past really fast, or the penny might shoot out at you really fast. I always put them near crossings or someplace where they alwas go slow. Any fact behind the idea that a penny can derail a train? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/2 "2002-08-21T02:54:00Z")
Staff Report, [Will a penny on the tracks derail a train?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtrackpenny.html) ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/3 "2002-08-21T02:56:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by clayton\_e \* > \*\*Ok, I gotta find this out for once and for all. When I wa a little kid I put pennies on the railroad tracks all the time, without incident. > But recently I heard somebody yelling at a kid near a track saying that it would derail the train. I had even seen some kids put things such as bolts onto the tracks with the same results as a penny. > I knew not to put a penny on a track where a train would go past really fast, or the penny might shoot out at you really fast. I always put them near crossings or someplace where they alwas go slow. > > Any fact behind the idea that a penny can derail a train? \*\* You came to the right place. [The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtrackpenny.html) has already dealt with this. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/4 "2002-08-21T02:58:18Z")
Curses foiled again, and by Duck Duck Goose! ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/5 "2002-08-21T03:00:30Z")
Has there ever been a documented case of a train derailing due to a penny on the track? Maybe a news link or something? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/6 "2002-08-21T03:03:40Z")
No, because then Jill would have said that the answer to your question is, “Yes, a penny on the tracks will derail a train, and here’s when it actually happened.” And she didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/7 "2002-08-21T04:05:21Z")
Well if a car left on the tracks won’t derail a train, I am not willing to bet on the chances of a coin doing it. Now to go and see what the clever people [other replies] said. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/8 "2002-08-21T05:02:07Z")
How could a penny do anything when the railroads actually use (or used when I was 15) Railroad Torpedoes? Railroad torpedoes are/were condom-size paper packets with lead straps on either side. They were strapped to the track and when the engire ran over them they’d detonate. The engineer could feel this all the way up in the cab, as a way of warning him of conditions up ahead. We stole a box of them once. The contents looked like sand. One of us took a tiny booger-size piece and hit it with a hammer. The impact blew the hammer out of his hand, and luckily missed his head. So we took to setting the torpedoes on the ground and reaching around a corner, dropping flagstones on them. I got a rock splinter in my cheek way too close to my eye doing that. We knew it was dangerous, but we sure couldn’t let a whole box of railroad torpedoes go to waste. Sorry about the hijack, but if a explosive device was designed to be run over by a train, how could a penny derail one? A penny can’t even derail my brother, who’s got at least 35 of them somewhere in his GI tract. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/9 "2002-08-21T09:33:12Z")
Well thank you all for your assistance in my quest for further knowledge. And for something to eat up my time. good day to all. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/10 "2002-08-21T10:07:16Z")
Kids, definitely **don’t** try this at home. Here in Australia (and, as we see above, elsewhere) there have been many cases of “railroad torpedoes” or “railway detonators” as they are known here, being stolen from railway depots by punk kids. They are little bombs. They go bang! Leave them alone. In the best outcome, nobody will be injured at the time, but train crews will succumb to a “boy who cried wolf” syndrome, and maybe not respond appropriately when there are actual work crews on the track. Or maybe, little Johnny comes home to mum and dad with a weird number of fingers, or maybe doesn’t come home at all. Trains are fast and heavy. They don’t stop on a dime. Don’t mess with 'em. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/11 "2002-08-21T12:40:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by clayton\_e \* > **I knew not to put a penny on a track where a train would go past really fast, or the penny might shoot out at you really fast. I always put them near crossings or someplace where they alwas go slow.** Duct tape it to the track. [sub]If you can’t duck it, fuck it. :D[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/12 "2002-08-21T12:46:50Z")
We didn’t have no stinking duct tape when I was a kid. We took our chances when we wanted flattened pennies. ---
**Author:** ![milo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@milo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/13 "2002-08-21T23:08:32Z")
When I was a kid, a friend of mine moved up to something much bigger - a nut (as in nuts and bolts) that was around 3/8" thick and almost 2" in diameter with a dime-sized hole (I forget what they were from, maybe a tie rod nut?). The thought of derailment never even crossed our minds. Of course, this was incredibly stupid and dangerous, and now I’d be very worried that a hunk of metal that size could really cause a derailment, but based on that experience I dont think a penny would have any effect at all. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/14 "2002-08-21T23:13:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Trains are fast and heavy. They don’t stop on a dime. Don’t mess with 'em. Nor do they stop on a penny.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/15 "2002-08-22T00:57:46Z")
Just to add to what others have said: when I was a teenager, I lived in an area where you couldn’t avoid the train tracks -there wasn’t much else to do. Any metallic stuff my friends and I put on the tracks got turned into an illustration of the principle of ductility, anything else (cloth, plastic, wood, or even rocks) just got pulverized. None of the trains ever faltered in the slightest. That being said, this sort of thing is not only dangerous, but may be considered trespassing. To illustrate this I ought to point out that I was once nearly run over by a train on those same tracks, which I was unwisely using as a shortcut. As Jill alludes to in her report, I never heard it coming (and the engineer didn’t see me in time to pull the horn). I’m damn lucky I looked back at the right time, and damn luckier that I was able to dive off the tracks without losing a leg or two. Don’t be that stupid, kids. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-putting-a-penny-on-a-railroad-track-derail-a-train/124848/16 "2002-08-22T01:29:40Z")
I seriously doubt a coin would ever **shoot out really fast** if runover by a train. It’s so thin that the downward force would never get converted to sideways movement. One thing I found out: Usually we would leave a penny and get it later, or the train would be going fast when it ran it over. Once, I saw a train coming really slow from far away. So I put a penny down and waited. The train was only going a few MPH but when it ran it over, **BLAM!** It sounded like a gun going off! I thought the engineer was going to stop, get out and chase me, it was so loud!