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Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET
Durability testing has been a hallmark of the smartphone era since the introduction of the first Apple iPhone in 2007, and it’s usually in the form of the drop test given that’s the most common wear-and-tear our handsets suffer with everyday use.
That hasn’t stopped some more outlandish efforts, like dropping a smartphone from a multiple-story building, smashing one with a hammer, or punching a quarter-sized hole in a gold iPhone 5S with a .50 caliber bullet.
Yet how would the iPhone 5S hold up against a train? A stupid idea, you might think. Perhaps illegal to even test out. You would be correct on both counts. That didn’t stop popular durability testing YouTube channel TechRax from making this video, whereupon two different iPhone 5S devices are, as one might expect, obliterated by a fast-moving train.
TechRax strapped the iPhones to the track with tape and use a GoPro camera to record the destruction. In the first instance, the black iPhone 5S’ nano SIM card remains intact, while the rest of the phone does not. In the second trial, a white iPhone 5S fares far worse, resulting in a smoldering heap of electronics splayed out over the train track stones.
On to the more important question: is this wildly dangerous and irresponsible? While it’s not illegal per se to put items, pennies included, on train tracks, it is considered trespassing in many areas to hangout around active tracks no matter what you’re doing. The Federal Railroad Administration reports that trespassing is the leading cause of rail-related deaths in America, a figure that comes in at approximately 500 fatalities every year.
While it’s not clear whether or not an iPhone could actually derail a train, and we don’t really need to find out, it’s definitely not a smart activity. After all, we can all reasonably assume that no phone, not even the iPhone 6, needs to be train-proof.
