1930 January 6 – United Kingdom – The rear carriages of a Southern Railway passenger train from to London are partially buried by a landslip near Wadhurst tunnel. The train is divided and the front part continues on to , where it arrives 100 minutes late. March 6 – United Kingdom – a London, Midland and Scottish Railway passenger train departs from station, Cumberland against signals. It is in collision with a ballast train at station, Cumberland. Two people die and four are seriously injured. March 17 - United States - Adams, Tennessee - L&N steam engine pulling a freight train explodes, killing 4 trainmen and 2 hobosEvansville Courier, March 18, 1930, page 1 March 22 – United Kingdom – A London, Midland and Scottish Railway Royal Scot express passenger train derails at , Bedfordshire when a crossover is taken at excessive speed. April 7 – Japan – Ōita: Perhaps due to a blasting accident at the colliery, some dynamite ends up in a train's coal supply. When it explodes, the locomotive and several cars are wrecked, 17 people die and two are seriously injured, and a forest fire is ignited. April 16 – USSR – At Domodedovo, now in Russia, some denatured alcohol spilled in a train is accidentally ignited. The fire results in the deaths of 45 people and seriously injures 23. May 20 – USSR – At Chernaya on the Moscow-Kazan line (all these places are now in Russia), the collision of a passenger and a freight train results in the deaths of 28 and severely injures 29. June 29 – USSR – A train from Irkutsk (now in Russia) to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia) is derailed near its destination due to a signalman's error; 22 die and 28 are seriously injured. July 16 – Romania – The collision of a passenger and a freight train between Petrova and Vișeu Bistra results in the deaths of 22 people. December 27 – China – A passenger train on a branch line of the Peking-Mukden Railway (those cities are now Beijing and Shenyang) is deliberately wrecked by bandits; the locomotive boiler explodes and 20 passengers are kidnapped for ransom. Altogether 80 people are killed.
1931 January 3 – United Kingdom – A London and North Eastern Railway passenger train derails at Carlisle, Cumberland due to excessive speed through a curve. Three people are killed. January 17 – United Kingdom – A London and North Eastern Railway newspaper train departs from station, Essex against signals and collides head-on with a light engine at Great Holland. Two people are killed. March 22 – United Kingdom – A London, Midland and Scottish Railway express passenger train derails at , Bedfordshire due to excessive speed through a crossover. Six people are killed. April 20 – China – Following heavy rain, an embankment collapses under a passenger train from Humchun to Kowloon, Hong Kong. At least 30 are killed and 20 to 30 seriously injured. April 29 – Egypt – The rear cars of a passenger train from Alexandria to Cairo, crowded with passengers due to the Eid al-Adha holiday, catch fire on the approach to Benha station. Many passengers jump from the moving train rather than wait for the station. Altogether 48 people are killed. May 27 – United Kingdom – A London and North Eastern Railway passenger train overruns signals and collides head-on with another passenger train at station, Norfolk. One person is killed and fifteen are injured. May 27 – United States – The Empire Builder, en route from Seattle to Chicago with 117 passengers, is struck by an F3 tornado in Clay County, Minnesota; all the cars (except the locomotive and coal tender) are blown off the track with one car thrown some 80 feet. One passenger is killed and 57 more are injured. June 17 – United Kingdom – A London Midland and Scottish Railway mail train overruns signals and rear-ends an express freight train at Crich, Derbyshire. Two people are killed and seventeen injured. August 8 – Germany - Szilveszter Matuska's first successful derailment, the Berlin to Basel, Switzerland express train south of Berlin on 8 August 1931.Murder in the 1930s p.230 September 13 – Hungary – Soon after leaving Budapest, an international express en route to Paris and Ostend is destroyed by a dynamite bomb on a bridge at Biatorbágy. Most of the train falls ; 22 passengers are killed. The bomber, Szilveszter Matuska, pretends to be a victim and sues the railway, but police checking his story become suspicious. Eventually he is given a death sentence, which is then commuted. September 18 – China, Liaoning, Mukden – Mukden Incident.The Cambridge History of Japan: The Twentieth Century, p. 294, Peter Duus, John Whitney Hall, Cambridge University Press: 1989 An instinct for War: Scenes from the battlefields of history, p. 315, Roger J. Spiller, ; Harvard University PressConcise dictionary of modern Japanese history, p. 120, Janet Hunter, University of California Press: 1984, late September – USSR – A troop train southwest of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) explodes with heavy loss of life. December – United Kingdom – At , Essex, a London and North Eastern Railway passenger train runs into wagons from the preceding freight train, which had been left on the line after a coupling broke. Two people are killed. December 25 - United States - A Southern Pacific class GS-1 4-8-4 #4402 suffers a boiler explosion in Richvale, California. The locomotive was later rebuilt in February 1932 and saw many years of service until it was scrapped on April 24, 1959.Southern Pacific class GS-1
1932 January 2 – USSR – At Kosino, just outside Moscow, a train moving at hits the rear of a stopped suburban train. Although there is time, nobody acts to protect the wreckage and a train of empty freight wagons crashes into it. Altogether 68 people are killed and 130 injured, and 11 railwaymen are arrested for criminal negligence. July 17 – South Africa – At Leeudoorn Stad (now Leeuwdoringstad), southwest of Orkney, a freight train is destroyed by the explosion of over of dynamite in 52 wagons. Two craters deep are left, 5 people killed, 7 injured, and of track destroyed. September 14 – French Algeria – Turenne rail accident: A 14-car troop train of the French Foreign Legion derails in the Atlas Mountains and plunges into a gorge. 57 legionnaires and most of the train's crew die; 223 are injured. October 16 – France – A passenger train rams a freight train near Cérences station, Manche, Normandy, and goes down a steep grade, splintering the lead coaches. Five men and two women are killed and fifteen others injured, all being residents of the local area where the accident occurred.Associated Press, "Seven Dead as Trains Collide", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Monday 17 October 1932, Volume 39, page 1. October 18 – USSR – Heavy loss of life occurs when the Black Sea express train, coming from Sochi, strikes a freight car that had been mistakenly switched to the express tracks at Lublinov station, eleven kilometers from Moscow, telescoping five cars, three of them passenger coaches.Wire service, "Casualties Heavy in Russian Train Crash", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 19 October 1932, Volume 39, page 3. Casualties include 36 killed and 51 injured. On October 31, the Soviet government sentences to death the station master whose negligence caused the accident. Three others also sharing responsibility receive prison terms.Wire service, "Station Master for Wreck Blame", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Tuesday 1 November 1932, Volume 39, page 4. December 14 – Switzerland – A collision in the Gutsch Tunnel on the Zug–Lucerne railway kills at least six people.The Straits Times, 19 December 1932, Page 11
1933 March 4 – United Kingdom – Great Western Railway freight train is struck by a landslide at Vriog, Merionethshire. The locomotive is pushed into the sea, both engine crew are killed. March 17 – Manchukuo (now part of China) – A passenger train is stopped between Chengchitun and Ssupingkai (now Siping) due to a "dislocation of the rails" and a freight train collides with its rear, killing 50 people and injuring 70. May 25 – United Kingdom – A Southern Railway passenger train derails at , London and comes to rest foul of the adjacent line. A passing express train collides with it, killing five people and injuring 35. The cause was a failure to implement a speed restriction during permanent way works. July 10 – United Kingdom – A London Midland and Scottish Railway express passenger train collides with a freight train at , Cumberland due to a signalman's error. One person is killed. September 5 – United States – A milk train goes through a stop signal and collides with a stopped Erie Railroad passenger train in Binghamton, New York. 14 people are killed, and 30 are injured. September 8 – United Kingdom – A passenger train runs into four wagons which had been left on the line at Bowling Basin, Dunbartonshire during shunting operations. Five people are injured. October 24 – France – A Chemins de fer de l'État express from Cherbourg to Paris derails at between Saint-Élier and Conches-en-Ouche, and part of the train falls into the river Iton; 36 people are killed and 68 injured. December 19 – United Kingdom – retired locomotive engineer George Jackson Churchward stepped onto the track near Swindon to examine a faulty rail fastening and was struck and killed by an express train hauled by locomotive 4085 Berkeley Castle. He was suffering from failing eyesight and hearing. December 23 – France – Lagny-Pomponne rail accident: Rear-end collision of Paris-Nancy express and Paris-Strasbourg fast train between Lagny-sur-Marne and Pomponne (Seine-et-Marne), 17 mi (23 km) out of Paris. 204 are killed and 300 injured aboard the Nancy express as its 7 wooden coaches are smashed. The driver of the Strasbourg train had passed a signal at danger in darkness and fog, but the "Crocodile" acoustic warning system was found to have failed because the contacts had iced over. The Compagnie de Chemin de Fer de l'Est was ordered to pay FFr44,000,000 in compensation to victims' families.
1934 February 18 – Italy – Near Populonia, on the single-track line from Campiglia Marittima to Piombino, a gasoline-powered railcar going collides with a steam special and catches fire. Of 48 passengers in the railcar, 34 are killed. February 26 – United States – Seven passengers and two enginemen are killed and some 40 others injured when a Fort Wayne Division Akron-to-Pittsburgh train of the Pennsylvania Railroad derails one mile (1600 m) short of Penn Station, its destination, just before 2200 hrs. Hitting a frozen switch, the pony truck on locomotive 1638 derails, turning the engine and tender over an embankment into Merchant Street and smashing a signal tower "to splinters" in the process.Associated Press, "Nine Killed In Train's Wreck", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 28 February 1934, Volume 40, pages 1, 2. Two Pullman cars behind the motive power derail but stay upright, but a following coach and diner drop 20 feet (6.1 m) to the street when their couplings break. It is in the coach that the fatalities occur.Associated Press, "Railway Wrecks Add To Storm's Toll – Pennsylvania Line Has Two Trains Crash", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Tuesday 27 February 1934, Volume 40, page 1. February 26 – United States – The Pennsylvania Railroad express, the Fort Dearborn, struck a truck at a grade crossing in a snowstorm at Delphos, Ohio. The engine overturned and seven cars derailed, killing the engineer and fireman, the truck driver, and injuring four more. March 4 – USSR – At a station from Moscow (now in Russia), a stationary train is struck by another one, killing 19 and injuring 52. The enginemen of the second train are sentenced to death and three other railwaymen to prison.