Tracks had safety tech, but it was being tested
Congress set deadline for automatic braking
The fatal Amtrak crash south of Seattle occurred on tracks where equipment for automatic braking, which Congress requires on all railroads by the end of 2018, was installed but still being tested.
Train 501was going 80 mph Monday in a curve posted for 30 mph when several cars derailed and dangled off a bridge above Interstate 5, according to Bella Dinh- Zarr, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board that is investigating.
At least three people died and dozens were injured when 13 train cars jumped the tracks during the train’s inaugural run along a newbypass route. The train carried 85 passengers and crew members.
Congress set the deadline for railroads to install automatic braking after a collision in Chatsworth, Calif., in 2008 between a commuter
“Positive Train Control” provides signals between tracks, trains and dispatch centers to slow down speeding trains or to stop them.
train and a freight train killed 25 people.
Safety advocates contended the technology could have prevented Monday’s accident.
The technology, collectively known as “Positive Train Control,” provides signals between tracks, trains and dispatch centers to slow down speeding trains or to stop them at the appropriate signals if the engineer doesn’t respond. Railroads are installing the technology piecemeal across the country at a cost of billions of dollars.
“The Positive Train Control equipment has been installed and is now still in testing, which is why the system has not been activated,” Jason Abrams, an Amtrak spokesman, said of the track where the accident occurred.
Sound Transit, a Seattle- area company, owns the tracks south from Tacoma to DuPont, where the accident occurred, providing its own transit service as far south as Lakewood, according to spokesman Geoff Patrick.
The stateDepartment of Transportation upgraded the tracks with federal funding, so Amtrak could travel farther south while avoiding freight tracks that run along the shore of Puget Sound.
“We own the tracks, but we do not operate on them,” Patrick said of the accident location.
Sound Transit installed Positive Train Control equipment along the railroad right- of- way, which will communicate with trains and network control centers, Patrick said. But the system hasn’t been linked or certified as operational, he said.
“We are well ahead of the December 2018 deadline and on schedule for implementing in the second quarter of 2018,” Patrick said. “We’re pleased to be well ahead of the deadline.”
“We are huge supporters of Positive Train Control at Amtrak,” CEO Richard Anderson said.
Keith Millhouse, rail- safety consultant and a former board chairman of Metrolink at the time of the Chatsworth collision, advocated for Positive Train Control because rail accidents often result from human errors.
He said Monday’s accident was “eerily similar” to an Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia in May 2015, which killed eight people and injured hundreds.
The NTSB ruled that the engineer lost awareness of where hewas on his route and headed into a 50- mph curve at more than 100 mph. Positive Train Control hadn’t been installed on that part of track by the time of the accident.
Amtrak completed it along its portion of the Northeast Corridor in December 2015.
Benedict Morelli, a New York lawyer who represented passengers in the Philadelphia crash, said Congress should have hastened the requirement for railroads to adopt the technology.
Even when completed, the system is not foolproof. An Amtrak train struck a backhoe at 99 mph outside Philadelphia in April 2016, killing two people and injuring 36 — despite automatic braking installed along the track.
The NTSB found a safety lapse between work shifts: A night foreman lifted a closure on the track, which the day foreman didn’t resume, even though the backhoe remained on the track.