history
TankieTanuki
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3w ago
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99%
In 1888, Russian Czar Alexander III accused the railroad of being "Jewish" when he was begged to reduce the speed of his imperial train. Two months later, it derailed, killing 21 people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borki_train_disaster#Investigation
In the preceding years, [Sergei] Witte had been regularly involved in managing imperial train journeys across his railroad and was well known to the tsar. Two months before the crash, Alexander, upset about Witte's insistence on reducing train speed limits, had publicly chastised him and his railway, referring to its owners' ethnicity:
Nowhere else has my speed been reduced; your railroad is an impossible one because it is a Jewish road.
According to Witte, he had warned the government earlier of the deficiencies in train setup, notably using paired steam engines and faulty saloon cars.
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