[Publius]

The overhead catenary wire on the Northeast Corridor is AC, not DC. A 12 kilovolt AC jolt can fry a human.

[Olog-hai]

There is no such thing as a “jolt” of any voltage. Only current can kill, not electric potential; and current needs a path to the ground. Tasers are of higher voltage than the former New Haven Railroad, quite often more than quadruple (as much as octuple), but they do not kill due to where the current goes, i.e. not across the heart.

Third rail has an electric potential of 750 volts DC, but kills just as effectively due to the current that flows through the body when contact between it and the ground is initiated; and since it’s just a foot or two above the ground, that occurs far easier than with wires that are over 20 feet above the ground.