Amtrak Washington train crash: Deaths as carriages fall on US motorway

[Gerald]

At least three people have been confirmed killed after a US passenger train derailed onto a motorway in Washington state during rush hour on Monday morning.

Officials say 72 people were taken to hospitals after most of the Amtrak train's carriages left the track.

A number of those injured are reported to be in a critical condition.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42401707

How could this happen?

[GoldenRivet]

AmTrak does not have the most stellar safety record.

Chances are it is due to locomotive maintenance issue, track maintenance issue, excessive speed, or collision or any number of those issues.

[Jimbuna]

Chances are it is due to locomotive maintenance issue, track maintenance issue, excessive speed, or collision or any number of those issues.

That's a pretty broad net you've cast there John, could apply to most rail accidents :)

[Catfish]

As i know from a befriended UP conductor, the neglect of maintenance in US infrastructure and especially railroads, is breathtaking.


In Germany, railroads were initially a national institution, like mail and a lot of other infrastructure back then. Only some decades ago, it was decided to privatise the railroads and mail services, to "spare the tax payer money", for maintenance and the like or so they said.

Did i say that the railroads (as postal services, buildings, stock) had been built and bought with tax payer's money? This "privatising" is disappropriation of the people, nothing else. Take away from the lot of thepeople, to make a few rich.

So the private companies 'bought' railroads from the state for one symbolic D-Mark, and then tried to quench out of it as much as possible, raising prices, of course doing nothing to hold up the standards, or maintain the railroads, or rolling stock. Which led to neglect, decay, less service and finally a lot of accidents, of course.

Every time the privatised railroads run by companies fail in the end, they will be bought back by the state for lots of money, and then added repair and maintenance – once more all done with the tax payer's money.
And then it all starts again, full circle.

Communism does not work because people are not noble enough.
Capitalism works because the dumbness of the people can be taken for granted.

[Commander Wallace]

It has been determined, after recovery of one of the " black boxes " recorders, that the Amtrak train was traveling at 80mph in a designated 30mph zone. The track in this area was newly refurbished and rebuilt. Investigators are now trying to determine if the train engineer was distracted by cell phone use at this time, which is prohibited.

3 people were killed and 72 injured of which 10 have been listed as serious.



http://wdtn.com/2017/12/19/ntsb-amtrak-train-going-too-fast-in-deadly-washington-crash/


http://abcnews.go.com/US/amtrak-train-speed-limit-derailed-washington-state-ntsb/story?id=51878888

[Skybird]

Communism does not work because people are not noble enough.
Capitalism works because the dumbness of the people can be taken for granted.
Communism does not work because people are no ego-free, non-individual drones.
Captialism works because of competition, and the freedom of bad performers to fail and dropping out of competition.

Lets talk about the desastrous effects of MONOPOLISM and lacking competition. ;)

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Amtrak does not own or maintain most of tracks it operates on. Majority (including accident site) is owned and maintained by private freight railways and state governments. Amtrak owns most of Northeast Corridor (Washington D.C. to New Rochelle and New Haven to Boston) and some lesser sections of track in Southern California and Michigan.

Latest what I have heard from Yle (Finnish national brodcaster) said that according to event data recorder of trailing locomotive, train was operating at speed of about 130 km/h in section where speed limit is 50 km/h. They also said that NTSB hasn't been able to event data recorder of leading locomotive and they are unable to say why train was operating at excessive speed.

[propbeanie]

I retired from the US rail industry (Class I carrier), and I can tell you for a ~FACT~ that the US rail industry does NOT neglect ROW (Right Of Way) maintenance. Why would they want to anyway? Imagine the impact of a derailment. Not to forget the lives that can and are lost by one, but the money lost in damages, repair and lost time. Not a good way to run a business. I have no idea how reliable the reports are, since ~NONE~ of the information that the NTSB or FRA gathers is supposed to be disclosed until the investigation is concluded, nor do any rail corporations have a disclosure procedure, so all of the information we're hearing (other than injuries etc.) is local authorities and the "reliable" media, quick to crucify someone, anyone...

If you look at an overhead of the wreck site - my first thought is "Why are they running an Amtrak passenger train on a line with a curve like that (over an interstate highway, no less)?" It looks like that, when they built the highway, they undercut the rail line, and moved it, with a sharper curve and bridge, to accommodate the highway. Either that, or it's the former junction of two rail lines made into a new route, but without straightening out the connection. Either way, NOT good railroad construction engineering practice for the purpose. Industrial track? Fine. Not passenger trains. They spent millions on physical upgrades of the tracks, why not that curve? Politicians saving money, pure and simple. AMTRAK is government funded, federally (mostly) and locally. Brownie points for re-election...

Still, from my "expertise" (hah! what a joke!), the train was traveling at an excessive speed, similar to the last "big" Amtrak wreck over East, where you have a high-speed mainline, with an allowed speed of 79mph (you hit 80 for over so many seconds, and you lose your engineer's certification and license - your job!), having to drop to 30 mph for a curve, and the operator of said vehicle not adhering, for whatever reason, whether incapacitated, distracted or whatever. Modern US locomotives have onboard video and audio recorders, for in-the-cab and radio, along with recording all sorts of other information about brakes, speed, horn, etc., so they'll most likely have all the information they need for the investigation shortly, if not already. A nearby town's mayor expressed his concern with all of the grade crossings in his town, and the anticipated speeds of the passenger trains, though I bet he never dreamed of this. Even talk of that high and mighty "Positive Train Control" is ignorant. If it worked properly, it'd be fantastic - however, that's a different story for some other time...

[Mr Quatro]

I retired from the US rail industry (Class I carrier), and I can tell you for a ~FACT~ that the US rail industry does NOT neglect ROW (Right Of Way) maintenance.

Wow! I didn't know that ... y'all should share more often ... :yep:

Fact: The train was going 80mph on a 30mph curve plus wet weather plus a bridge plus it was a brand new train run planned on purpose to run a high speed run between Seattle and Portland and it was the first one.

Spells someone made a big planning mistake that cost three (3) lives and 100 injured. Could've been prevented with sensors in the rail sytem that automactically brake the train.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Spells someone made a big planning mistake that cost three (3) lives and 100 injured.Considering that line in question was just recently renovated; there is also possibility that curve was not properly signed as restricted speed zone.

Could've been prevented with sensors in the rail sytem that automactically brake the train.There are many alternative ATP solutions available but common to (almost) all of them is additional construction and maintenance costs. Atleast here in Finland level of safety systems depends on amount of traffic on line in question. Heavily used main lines have all bells and whistles to improve safety while less used secondary and branch lines often sacrifice something to keep them economically viable.

Cold fact of life is that if costs of maintaining railway line exceed benefits it provides, then the line will be closed. In most cases that is highly undesirable so compromises in safety aspects are accepted. This isn't unique to railways but also applies to level of care roads receive. Little used rural road is unlikely to be kept upto same standard as Interstate highways.

I'm not familiar with line where this accident happened but it sounds like something that falls into secondary or branch line category.

[vienna]

Reports have indicated a system called Positive Train Control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control) (PTC) was in place on the track system but not on the train itself; PTC works as sort of a backup to human control with the capability of overriding human control if the train is operating out of safe parameters. PTC is a very important feature for train safety, but the US rail companies have stalled on universal implementation (it hits their bottom line and, hence, the bonuses of the rail executives) and have had tacit cooperation from some members of Congress in delaying the PTC systems by the continued push backs and extensions given the rail industries to comply with laws already on the books. PTC is in use on the commuter rail system here in Southern California, but only after a couple of severe train wrecks, the last costing 25 lives and 125 injuries:

2008 Chatsworth train collision --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chatsworth_train_collision




According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the cause of the collision, the Metrolink train ran through a red signal before entering a section of single track where the opposing freight train had been given the right of way by the train dispatcher. The NTSB faulted the Metrolink train's engineer, 46-year-old Robert M. Sanchez, for the collision, concluding that he was distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty.


One of the changes recommended by the NTSB, in addition to implementation of the PTC system, was the installation of audio and video recording of all train engine cabs to ensure operator compliance with work norms; this drew a loud howl from the operators' unions, decrying 'invasion of privacy'; the changes, at least on the SoCal lines, were made...

It is way past time for Congress to give more weight to the safety and welfare of the rail passengers and less to the penny-pinching of the self-serving rail executives...

...Maybe if we took the costs of settling the damage claims directly out of their salaries and bonuses?... :hmmm:








<O>

[propbeanie]

Let me interject again... I'm not familiar with what was allowed for with SoCal, but most of the Class 1 lines HAVE to have cameras inside and out. The locomotive, while not having as many events recorded as a plane (no leading or trailing edge surfaces, of course... ahem) do have quite a few.

PTC would be fine, except (besides being a regulatory boondoggle that doesn't work correctly, which is why it keeps getting delayed)... as has been mentioned by others, the local and state officials were in a hurry to get this going (gotta get those brownie points from their constituents)... the rail line has PTC (I don't know if it's fully functional in that area), but the locomotive is not equipped, from what I've seen / heard on the tellie. PTC should work on a single track rail line under most circumstances, but it does nothing without an equipped locomotive that can "read" the signals. Otherwise, the train would have had its brakes applied in an emergency fashion as soon as the train passed the point of non-compliance, which is most like 2 miles out from the curve... Who was at the controls of the locomotive? Was anyone else in the operating cab? Did they not see the violation?

[Platapus]

My cheap Garman alerts me when the posted speed limit changes and alarms when I exceed that speed limit by about 2-3 mph. Is there any reason why such a device could not be used on a train?

With practically everything on trains being controlled by computers, is there no way to program a governor to kick in when the speed of the train is almost three times the speed limit?

[GoldenRivet]

That's a pretty broad net you've cast there John, could apply to most rail accidents :)

it was intended as a quip toward their history :D

my aim was off i suppose there

[vienna]

Let me interject again... I'm not familiar with what was allowed for with SoCal, but most of the Class 1 lines HAVE to have cameras inside and out. The locomotive, while not having as many events recorded as a plane (no leading or trailing edge surfaces, of course... ahem) do have quite a few.

PTC would be fine, except (besides being a regulatory boondoggle that doesn't work correctly, which is why it keeps getting delayed)... as has been mentioned by others, the local and state officials were in a hurry to get this going (gotta get those brownie points from their constituents)... the rail line has PTC (I don't know if it's fully functional in that area), but the locomotive is not equipped, from what I've seen / heard on the tellie. PTC should work on a single track rail line under most circumstances, but it does nothing without an equipped locomotive that can "read" the signals. Otherwise, the train would have had its brakes applied in an emergency fashion as soon as the train passed the point of non-compliance, which is most like 2 miles out from the curve... Who was at the controls of the locomotive? Was anyone else in the operating cab? Did they not see the violation?

Counter-Interjection!... :haha:

The rail lines here in SoCal, at the time of the Chatsworth Wreck did not have PTC on either the tracks or the trains and, as a result of the investigation into the wreck, it was discovered, also, the installation of PTC had been delayed because of waivers given to the rail companies invloved pushing back implementation. The Chatsworth Wreck was the second large rail disaster in less than 5 years involving the Metrolink system; one poor fellow, with whom I had briefly worked with previously, survived the prior wreck, with moderate injuries, only to be killed in the 2008 Wreck. Metrolink did have all the usual 'black box' equipment, but did not have video or audio installed, again, mainly because of pushback from the unions over privacy concerns and the rail companies, mainly over expense. There are now both video and audio surveillance in the cabs and work areas and full PTC...

Regarding PTC, it may not be a foolproof system, but it does give at least some layer of deterrence against a lot of the problems; until something better comes along, it would be unwise to just abandon the use of PTC just because its not "perfect"; the lock on my front door may not be a perfect solution against break-ins, but I still have it installed because it does deter most efforts and the possible results of not having a lock at all are much more unacceptable than having having a lock...

In the latest case, I wonder just how much the human element may have played in the crash? A while back, the San Francisco Municipal Railway revised and expanded its rail routes to route several street car routes on their initial morning runs to other routes through an area that had a very sharp turn; the turn was well known to the operators who had long serviced the original line and they respected a slow speed limit on the curve; however, it seems some of the other, unfamiliar operators took to seeing who could take the turn at the highest speed; this resulted in a number of derailments and, since the route was one of the main ways streetcars for other lines got to the own routes, the delays caused to other routes in clearing up the wrecks was considerable. Could it be the operators of Monday's train were trying to see if they could also take the curve at an 'extreme' speed?...







<O>

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

My cheap Garman alerts me when the posted speed limit changes and alarms when I exceed that speed limit by about 2-3 mph. Is there any reason why such a device could not be used on a train?Those systems work by determining where you are and then check what the map says about speed limit. In railways that works fine until next interlocking where there are different speed limits for main and secondary routes. That means in almost every interlocking you encounter, you have a problem.

For example lets say that main route has speed limit of 80 mph but when switches are turned into siding there is speed limit of 20 mph over switches (exceed that and you may derail). If your safety system relies on GPS and map then you must enforce lowest speed limit possible in that section of track. At first glance it may not look too bad but you must take into account braking distances and length of siding. Delays caused by unnecessarily low speed limit add up quickly.

With practically everything on trains being controlled by computers, is there no way to program a governor to kick in when the speed of the train is almost three times the speed limit?That is standard functionality of automatic train protection (ATP) systems provided that sufficient information about applicable speed limits is available (see above). Installation of ATP system into locomotive is relatively easy (emphasis on relatively) and is generally not restricted by technological level of locomotive. Ofcourse in modern locomotive you can integrate stuff directly into controls which avoids clutter (and hence human factors troubles) in locomotive cab design.

Here in Finland computerized ATP system has been installed into pre-WWII (museum) steam locomotives but fortunately it wasn't my headache to make it work!

[vienna]

I owe an apology to propbeanie: Last night on a local LA news program, there was a discussion about the Washington train wreck and whether the same might happen here in SoCal. The question of PTC was brought up and, to the surprise of the interviewer (and myself), it was revealed local Amtrak rail lines do not have PTC in use on any of their routes. The surprise came about because the local commuter rail system, Metrolink, whiich uses Amtrak and other rail lines, does in fact have PTC and has had ever since the fallout from the Chatsworth Wreck. The predominant belief has been, since Metrolink uses PTC on Amtrak lines, Amtrak should have been using PTC, also. Amtrak, et al, have been taking advantage of the waivers and push backs given to them regarding installation of PTC and have basically ignored Metrolink's usage of the system. So, propbeanie, you are fully correct about Amtrak and PTC and I stand (well, actually, sit) corrected... :up: :salute:








<O>

[propbeanie]

No apology necessary, good sir. :salute: The problem with information of that nature, beside its being proprietary, is the media 'reporters' who don't know the differrence between 'investigate' and 'repeat verbatem', nor do they recognize the difference between 'truth' and 'sensationalism'. Most folks don't know what a drawbar is or does on the railroad, much less what PTC is, nor where or why or how it's used. Even the big Class 1 roads had to ask for waivers, due to the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. All new equipment purchased, or rail lines upgraded, have had PTC as part of them for the last several years. It's mandated. Every little device has to have a radio link for communication with the system. I mean, even a burnt-out lightbulb at a public crossing at grade is tracked, and restricts trains. The complexity of the system is immense. The cost is immense. All of the privately held railroads, big & small, have been working toward compliance with the beast of a system. The entity that is lagging (that I know of)? Federally funded Amtrak. Why? Probably budget... They are trying to do a lot with the budget they have, but still... Railroading is not a low-cost, high profit industry.