{"podcast":{"title":"Flightless Bird","slug":"flightless-bird-6992938","podcast_index_feed_id":6992938,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/RGP4217667012","website_url":"https://flightless-bird.simplecast.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/707b62be-12b2-11f0-b3c1-cf72f62eb71a/image/e02bd2c61ab9cb9a40e291b91230aca8.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"David Farrier","episode_count":203,"summary":"Flightless Bird follows journalist David Farrier as he learns about what makes America special from his unique perspective as a Kiwi accidentally marooned in the Land of the Free. Infinitely curious but never judgmental, each week, David (along with cohost and American Rob) seeks to understand what makes America so unique, strange, and wonderful.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-28T16:19:12.849931+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/flightless-bird-6992938"},"episode":{"title":"Train Crashes","slug":"train-crashes","published_at":"2026-03-17T07:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/flightless-bird-6992938/train-crashes","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/flightless-bird-6992938","url":"https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/10/arttrk.com/p/ARTS0/traffic.megaphone.fm/RGP5593395720.mp3?updated=1773712601","audio_url":"https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/10/arttrk.com/p/ARTS0/traffic.megaphone.fm/RGP5593395720.mp3?updated=1773712601","summary":"In this week’s Flightless Bird, David talks to a woman who’s been working at a law firm for over a decade that represents motorists who get hit by trains. How is this a full time job? Well, there are around 1300 train derailments in the US every year - 3.5 per day. Since 1975, those derailments have killed 467 people, 12,500 people maimed along the way. Then there are all the incidents of trains hitting cars, mostly at railway crossings. Last year, trains hit cars 1,870 times. 247 people died in the process - and 623 were injured. The year before that, even more people died being hit by America’s trains. David talks survival tips, and tries to get to the bottom of why this is happening. LINKS: Upcoming Flightless Bird live shows: 3/29 in Salt Lake City at the Depot https://bit.ly/flightlessSLC 4/2 in Austin at Emo's https://bit.ly/flightlessATX 4/4 in Dallas at the Texas Theatre https://bit.ly/flightlessDFW Join us for bonus episodes on Patreon: patreon.com/flightlessbird Contact us with your feedback: flightlessbirdchat@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices","meta_description":"In this week’s Flightless Bird, David talks to a woman who’s been working at a law firm for over a decade that represents motorists who get hit by trains.…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4276,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/flightless-bird-6992938/episodes/train-crashes/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/flightless-bird-6992938/train-crashes.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}