[trothamel]

You're just as dead if you jump from a railroad bridge, though.

http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/tdreport_final.pdf

is a Federal Railroad Administration report that breaks down the cause of trespasser fatalities. This isn't 100% comparable to the previous report, but it does claim that 23% of trespasser fatalities are suicides.

Appendix H breaks down the reported fatalities - it looks like walking and sleeping (drunk?) on tracks each claim more lives than suicide.

One really interesting story is the massive increase in car safety. Deaths per 100M vehicle miles have dropped from 1.73 in 1994 to about 1.09 in 2010.

Fundamentally, I'm not sure any of this matters. We're talking a very small difference in safety - to the point where convenience is probably more important to most people.