- January 22, 1930 – Berea, Ohio, USA: New York Central mail train headed for Chicago broadsides a school bus at grade. Nine passengers, all aged 6–11, and the driver die. He had stopped for a passing freight, then proceeded, without looking, into the path of the mail train.
- April 11, 1930 – Isleta, New Mexico, USA: Santa Fe westbound mail train No. 7 strikes a Greyhound bus at a grade crossing 12 miles (19 km) south of Albuquerque. 21 killed, 7 injured. Bus's fuel tank explodes on impact, burning many victims beyond recognition. The Interstate Commerce Commission report on the accident mentions that at this time, accidents at railroad grade crossings are causing some 2,000 deaths and 6,000 injuries annually.
- June 30, 1930 – USSR: Amidst a rash of Soviet rail accidents, the Irkutsk–Leningrad express derails in northwest Russia, killing 22 and injuring 28. The State Commissar of Railways begins a housecleaning program that uncovers high levels of carelessness and even drunkenness on the job. Severe penalties are put in place for negligence; as a result of the 1930 crashes, 12 railway workers are imprisoned and two executed.
- December 3, 1930 – USSR: A tram motorman fails to heed crossing signals and pulls into the path of an oncoming locomotive. 28 die, 19 are injured. The accident leads to the imprisonment of 16 additional railway workers.
- January 26, 1931 – Groningen, The Netherlands: An incoming passenger train from Nieuweschans collides with a freight train. The locomotive from the passenger train derails and crashes into a school. A shunter told the freight train driver to accelerate in spite of a stop signal. 3 killed, 5 injured.
- May 27, 1931 – Moorhead, Minnesota: The Great Northern Railway's Empire Builder, bound for Chicago from Seattle, is torn from the tracks by a tornado. One coach, weighing 83 tons, is hit full force and flung 80 feet (24 m) through the air. One passenger is killed, 57 injured.
- September 13, 1931 – Biatorbágy, Hungary: Sylvestre Matuschka blows up the viaduct under the Budapest–Vienna express train, killing 22 passengers and injuring 17.
- January 2, 1932 – near Moscow, USSR: Two packed suburban trains collide after one strikes and kills a person walking the track. The train stops to retrieve the body but puts out no flares, lanterns or flags. The next train on the line slams into it at 50 mph (80 km/h), crushing six cars. In another tragic error, injured passengers are helped to a parallel track, where they are struck by yet a third locomotive. 68 are killed.
- August 29, 1933 – The Golden State Limited, a transcontinental passenger train, went through a storm-weakened bridge into an arroyo near Tucumcari, New Mexico. 11 people were killed and 46 injured.
- December 14, 1933 – 11 area children were killed when their school bus was hit by an Atlantic Coast Line freight train near Crescent City, Florida, resulting in the deaths of ten of the school children and the serious injury of a score of others--"several of whom are not expected to recover."
- September 21, 1934 – Otsu, Japan: The Biwako Line express train from Tokyo derails off the Seta River bridge in the midst of the devastating Muroto typhoon. At least 11 killed, 216 injured.
- December 24, 1935 – Großheringen, Germany: A local packed with Christmas travelers, just leaving a depot in Thuringia, runs a red signal on a bridge and sideswipes a Berlin-Frankfurt am Main express. Coaches on the local go over the side into the frozen Saale River. 36 killed, 50 or more injured.
- March 28, 1936 – Byron, Georgia, United States: A Central of Georgia passenger train, going too fast through a grade crossing at night, strikes a bus which had failed to stop at the crossing. 11 of the 13 aboard the bus are killed.
- July 21, 1936 – Vandergrift, Pennsylvania: An 8" long piece of strap iron left on the track by a 12-year-old boy derails an 87-car PRR freight, killing the engine fireman.
- November 24, 1936 – Chicago, Illinois: A North Shore Line interurban rear-ends a Chicago L train at Granville Avenue. Though the crash was at slow speed, steel cars on the L crushed wood cars coupled between them. 10 killed, 59 injured.
- November 26, 1936- Waterford, New Jersey: A pickup truck carrying 4 people, including an 8 year old boy, was struck while the passengers were out collecting firewood for Thanksgiving dinner. All 4 aboard were killed. None injured on the Wildwood Express of the Pennsylvania Seashore Line bound for Philadelphia, PA.
- July 16, 1937 – A Delhi–Kolkata express derailed at Patna, Bihar, India, killing 107.
- October 22, 1937 – Mason City, Iowa: The Rock Island Line Rocket streamliner strikes a school bus at grade just outside a brick and tile factory after a class tour. 10 killed, 19 injured. Sight lines were obstructed by tile pallets stacked near the crossing.
- June 15, 1938 – A Shimonoseki–Kyoto passenger train derailed by heavy rain with mud-rock flow at Kumayama-Wake of JNR Sanyo Line, eastern Okayama, Japan, killing 25, another 108 are injured.
- September 20, 1938 - Tortuga, California: A misplaced switch on the Southern Pacific Railroad sends the eastbound Californian crashing into the westbound Argonaut which is waiting on a siding; 11 die and 139 are injured.
- September, 1938 – Martorell, near Barcelona, Spain: Faulty signals and poor visibility on a curve are blamed after two trains on same track collide head-on. 65 killed.
- December 1, 1938 - A late-running D&RGW freight, "The Flying Ute", hits a school bus during a blinding snowstorm near 300 West and 10600 South in Sandy, Utah, killing 23 of 39 students along with the bus driver in the worst railroad crossing accident in United States history. The accident caused subsequent changes in school bus regulations to require that in addition to stopping the bus at railroad crossings, the school bus door is to be opened by the driver to be able to hear an approaching train.
- December 19, 1938 – A freight and passenger train collide near Barbacena, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wooden cars splinter and catch fire, killing at least 82. Some of the dead are Boy Scouts.
- December 21, 1938 – 45 miles (72 km) from Mexico City, a broken wheel causes 14 cars to derail, killing at least 40. Most passengers were government employees on holiday.
- December 25, 1938 – In Bessarabia near Chişinău—which is now in Moldova but was then part of Romania—two passenger trains collide in a snowstorm. 93 killed, 340 injured.
- March 20, 1939 – RBD Stettin on main line between Angermünde and Pasewalk Express train D 17 derailed. Boiler of locomotive 03.174 (Borsig 14535 / 1934) exploded due to a boiler water shortage. Two killed and two injured. Locomotive 03.174 had to be scrapped due to severe damage.
- March 29, 1939 – Sud Express overnight express between Paris and Lisbon, at Tolosa, Spain.
- September 17, 1939 – Ramla Tzrifin, British Palestine: collision of a freight train traveling from Srfnd with a bus traveling from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The bus windows were protected against stone-throwing by nets, which prevented the passengers from escaping when the bus caught fire. Of the 30 or so passengers 23 died in the fire, and 6 more (including the driver) died in hospital soon afterwards.
- November 11, 1939 – RBD Oppeln Cosel - Bauerwitz single line. Passenger trains P 950 and P 957 crashed due to faulty signals. 43 killed and 48 injured.
- December 22, 1939 – Markdorf, Germany: collision of a special passenger train and a goods train on the Radolfzell-Lindau line, 101 killed. These were the first accidents in German railway history to claim more than 100 victims; they happened on the same day.
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Moved from Talk:List of rail accidents (1940–1949)