Horn, brake used before Amtrak crash
String of train accidents raises questions about automatic safety systems
The engineer of an Amtrak train sounded his horn for three seconds and eventually hit the emergency brake, slowing the train 50 mph before it slammed head-on into a freight train near Columbia, South Carolina, federal investigators said Monday.
The impact of the crash early Sunday was so intense that it moved the empty CSX freight train 15 feet from where it was parked on tracks adjacent to the main rail line, according to Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash. The Amtrak train’s conductor and engineer were killed, and 116 others were hospitalized.
Sunday’s crash in Cayce, South Carolina, about 4 miles south of Columbia, was the third high-profile incident involving an Amtrak train in less than two months. Last Wednesday, an Amtrak train carrying GOP lawmakers to their annual retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck outside Crozet, Virginia. No lawmakers were seriously injured, but a passenger in the truck was killed.
The crashes have renewed concern about whether enough is being done to equip railroads with an automatic braking system known as positive train control, which Sumwalt and others say could have prevented Sunday’s fatal crash and one that occurred in December, just outside Seattle.
PTC originally was supposed to be in place by the end of 2015, but after a push by the rail industry, Congress postponed the deadline until the end of this year, with the possibility that it could be extended to the end of 2020.
Last month, however, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao sent letters warning railroad industry leaders that they must meet the end-of-year deadline.
On Monday, members of the Association of American Railroads, which lobbies for the freight industry, said its members will meet the deadline.
“The railroads are very far along,” said Michael Rush, senior vice president of the Association of American Railroads. “All of the (seven major railroads) are going to make it by (December) 2018.”
What “making it” means will vary. The law passed by Congress puts a December deadline on hardware installation, acquisition of the mandated radio spectrum and training of employees in its use.
The law also requires that 50 percent of the system be switched on by December. If the railroads comply with that deadline they will then be required to complete the balance of the system by the end of 2020.
In the briefing with reporters on Monday, Sumwalt said the information about the Amtrak train’s speed and the engineer’s actions, comes from the data recorder, which was retrieved from the wreckage. Investigators were hopeful that the front-facing video camera retrieved from the train’s locomotive Sunday would offer them more insight into what happened before the crash. However, it was discovered that the recording ended a few seconds before the crash. A forensics team in Washington is working on the footage, he said. The train hit a top speed of 57 mph before the engineer began to slow it; the speed limit in the corridor is 59.
About seven seconds before the end of the recording, the train’s horn was activated for three seconds.
“A lot has been done and a lot needs to be done,” Sumwalt said. “But I’m confident that our investigator will be able to piece this together.”
He said investigators are expected to remain in Cayce though the weekend.
Amtrak 91, traveling on tracks owned and maintained by freight railway giant CSX, was supposed to pass over the switch to continue onto the main-line tracks. Instead, it was directed onto a portion of track known as “siding,” which was occupied by the parked CSX train, Sumwalt said.