@TimRias Trains primarily focusing on goods traffic are explicitly excluded by only considering passenger train accidents. Indeed, there can be two meaning of safety: how safe is it to be on a train as a passenger, and how safe is the operation of passenger trains (per utility delivered). The question is about the latter, and hence should include pedestrian fatalities. The former would also be a valid but distinct question.

@Oddthinking Focusing on "Comparative Rail Safety", both the title and the statement "The US turns out to be the least safe among ..." imply a conclusion about safety of (passenger) rail transport, which is what I'm questioning. I.e. I'm not questioning that the author correctly loaded the data from Wikipedia, but rather questioning the conclusion, i.e. whether this data is representative of the overall safety of passenger rail in the US as compared to Japan. 7200 figure is the # of fatalities from all rail accidents, not just passenger rail accidents. Will update the question.