One interviewee said the freight train went about a third of the way into the front
passenger car.

If you look into how shaped charges work, you learn that the collapsed metal
liner (ie, jet) does its work on a Newtonian (momentum) basis. Heavier freight (strawberries
have the density of flesh) would have killed many more people.

Why don't passenger trains pull a sacrificial car, much like modern steering wheels have collapsable
segments?