Clearing I-5 today.

270,000 pound locomotive on trailer.

http://www.kiro7.com/news/south-sou...rake-before-deadly-train-derailment/666411103

DUPONT, Wash. - A former BNSF train engineer and railroad safety expert said Tuesday it was “unbelievable” that the engineer operating Amtrak train 501 did not use the emergency brake before the train derailed on Monday morning, killing three people and injuring dozens more.

“If you’re coming into that curve, the second you see where you're at, you're in emergency,” John Hiatt, who was a train engineer for 10 years and now investigates train crashes for Bremseth law firm, said. “It's almost like he flat out didn't see it coming -- he just lost track of where he was…. the only thing that explains that is he was incapacitated but even then the train will shut itself down over a length of time if he's not doing certain things in the cab.”
...
“In reviewing the event recorder, it looks like, in our preliminary analysis, that the emergency brake was automatically activated after -- when the accident was occurring rather being initiated by the engineer,” the NTSB’s Bella Dinh-Zarr said.

The train was going 80 mph, its top speed for the route, in the 30 mph curve onto the overpass over Interstate 5, where it derailed onto vehicles below.

Sound Transit confirmed that signs that the speed limit is dropping to 30 are posted 2 miles before the speed changes and also just before the speed zone approaching the curve.

The NTSB also stated Tuesday that another person was in the cab with the engineer: a conductor who was familiarizing himself with the territory.

http://www.king5.com/video/news/local/nurse-helped-injured-train-riders-on-scene/281-2843237

 

Yeah, I got caught up in that backup on I5. Didn't get any pics but it was one heck of a mess on the freeway. That's a bad spot to block I5. Wound up driving through Joint Base Lewis-McCord.

With all this technology, we still rely on just some guy to pay attention? With aircraft there are lots of systems that warn the pilot. With trains, nothing other than signs? This feels like a lot of things failed including training, briefing and supervision. Hope that the inquiry doesn't end with pinning it all on the engineer. Clearly he should get a lot of the blame but things like a new route should have been highlighted for him to be on the watch for. Pilots do a preflight briefing where anything new is clearly called out.

 

Yeah, I got caught up in that backup on I5. Didn't get any pics but it was one heck of a mess on the freeway. That's a bad spot to block I5. Wound up driving through Joint Base Lewis-McCord.

With all this technology, we still rely on just some guy to pay attention? With aircraft there are lots of systems that warn the pilot. With trains, nothing other than signs? This feels like a lot of things failed including training, briefing and supervision. Hope that the inquiry doesn't end with pinning it all on the engineer. Clearly he should get a lot of the blame but things like a new route should have been highlighted for him to be on the watch for. Pilots do a preflight briefing where anything new is clearly called out.

Unfortunately not all who get the job are qualified and capable of doing it correctly 100% of the time. Many are lucky to pass functionally safe for employment 50% of the time hence the huge push to make so much of our service industry as automated as possible.

The smarter and more capable our machines get the less and less valuable/employable our lower end educated and willing humans become for the very reason this train accident proves.

 

The industry has been talking about PTC - Positive Train Control - as a solution but I think I heard that this train didn't have it. Clearly the engineer wasn't positively controlling the train.

 

The industry has been talking about PTC - Positive Train Control - as a solution but I think I heard that this train didn't have it. Clearly the engineer wasn't positively controlling the train.

https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/no-excuse-for-disaster.143507/
There is some talk that the Engineer had an apprentice engineer on board and may have been distracted.
The PTC was supposed to be installed in the spring!
US Federal law says it has to be implemented in all cases by 2018.
Max.

 

US Federal law says it has to be implemented in all cases by 2018.

That's a big maybe! They are already talking about pushing it back to 12/31/2020. It WAS supposed to be implemented by 12/31/2015 and got pushed back by 3 years. https://www.fra.dot.gov/ptc

 

The industry has been talking about PTC - Positive Train Control - as a solution but I think I heard that this train didn't have it. Clearly the engineer wasn't positively controlling the train.

Railroads already have conventional signal systems (track circuits with coded carrier and cab signaling with ATC) that should have been effective at preventing this kind of accident..

So called positive train control (PTC) is just an advanced form of signaling that allows trains to run with closer headway, but it is not any safer than a conventional signal system with ATC.

From my experience, accidents like this one occur because the train is being run in "cut out mode" and the operator is running on sight. It's a dangerous situation like handling a loaded gun.

 

Unfortunately not all who get the job are qualified and capable of doing it correctly 100% of the time. Many are lucky to pass functionally safe for employment 50% of the time hence the huge push to make so much of our service industry as automated as possible.

The smarter and more capable our machines get the less and less valuable/employable our lower end educated and willing humans become for the very reason this train accident proves.

Many rail transit systems operate trains by automatic train control (ATC) which eliminates any human involvement in controlling the vehicle.

The BART system and Muni Railway both use ATC and the operator is on board in case the ATC defaults to safe mode and the train has to be run on manual. A smart high school student that knows how to drive a Honda has the education necessary to operate a transit vehicle on manual.

 

Foolish operator error. I know that terrain, soil, bridge, and track. Watched them build that new track, some on new foundation, and over an old tired trestle. The first northbound train had crossed it already that morning without incident I'm told, and if so, it was still climbing a grade which was quite restrictive to freight loads. It wasn't speeding.

The southbound train was operating on a straight line for over 10 miles, approximately 4 miles past its last grade crossing. The pusher was successfully auto-braked, and the car coupled directly to it also stayed on the rails, nearly undamaged.

The Mayor of the next town north had been battling Amtrak over maximum operating and crossing speeds for quite some time, and "Amtrak won the battle".

I love trains, grew up playing on the tracks, and have ridden thousands of miles on them. I'm hoping heads roll at Amtrak over this.

 

Also some bad engineering decisions. Google map DuPont WA, Mounts Road. You'll see how sharp a turn is presented to that rolling stock. Check the elevations too. Main line freight trains are continuing to use the pair of tracks running south of the new wrecked track (and they merge a few miles SE of the area of the wreck)

 

https://wspinsideout.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/our-thanks-to-you/

I think everyone can agree it has been a long couple of days. Just a little more than 50 hours after an Amtrak passenger train derailed in DuPont, Interstate 5 has reopened for public use.

As of this afternoon, December 20, 2017, the two left lanes are open, with a set reduced speed of 45 mph. All three lanes are expected to be open by tomorrow morning.

http://katu.com/news/local/16-year-...leed-after-washington-amtrak-train-derailment

 

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/PR20171222.aspx

The lead locomotive’s event data and video recorders were successfully downloaded with the manufacturer’s assistance and processed in the NTSB’s lab in Washington, D.C. An initial review of the final portion of the accident sequence revealed the following information, which is preliminary and subject to change as the investigation continues:

• Inward-facing video with audio captured the crew’s actions and their conversations. A forward-facing video with audio captured conditions in front of the locomotive as well as external sounds.
• The crew was not observed to use any personal electronic devices during the timeframe reviewed.
• About six seconds prior to the derailment, the engineer made a comment regarding an over speed condition.
• The engineer’s actions were consistent with the application of the locomotive’s brakes just before the recording ended. It did not appear the engineer placed the brake handle in emergency-braking mode.
• The recording ended as the locomotive was tilting and the crew was bracing for impact.
• The final recorded speed of the locomotive was 78 mph.

Looks like it was 6 seconds before the crash they even noticed the overspeed.

 

The motorman ("engineer" to some) survived, and sued Amtrak a day or 2 ago for not providing a safe work environment.

 

Yes, I can see the brief now - "Amtrak failed to properly train the victim to look out the window to see where the 100 ton vehicle was going. Amtrak failed to train the victim that crashes were a bad thing."

 

The operator/engineer sued Amtrak a couple days ago for failure to provide a healthy, safe work environment.

This is just a ploy for the train operator to try to escape blame and liability for criminal negligence, but it ain't gonna fly in a court.

Back in 2009, an operator at my former agency bypassed the automatic train control (ATC) without permission, operated the train manually, and rammed the train ahead of him at over 30 MPH. The Transport Workers Union's defense attorney claimed the operator had a "black out" and lost conscientiousness while operating the train on manual. There was also another bad accident in December where the operator of a street car rear ended a bus even though the rule book warns that rail cars must keep back from the vehicle ahead a minimum of 150 feet.

If these reckless operators cause an accident that causes injuries or death, they need to get a few years in the slammer for negligent homicide.

 

Another crash.

https://www.bizjournals.com/jackson...-working-at-site-of.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

 

There was a time when people said "a train crash" and everyone knew what everyone was talking about. Today when I hear a train crash I need to ask which one, there were several? The latest and greatest in NC it appears an Amtrack en route to Miami from NY hit a CSX freight train which was sitting on a siding. Now the question begs what was the Amtrack passenger train doing on a siding? Like how did it get there?

Ron

 

There was a time when people said "a train crash" and everyone knew what everyone was talking about. Today when I hear a train crash I need to ask which one, there were several? The latest and greatest in NC it appears an Amtrack en route to Miami from NY hit a CSX freight train which was sitting on a siding. Now the question begs what was the Amtrack passenger train doing on a siding? Like how did it get there?

Ron

CSX moved their train and parked it off the main track. Somebody at CSX cleared the track without unlocking and moving the track switch. CSX heads will likely roll on this one.

 

There was a time when people said "a train crash" and everyone knew what everyone was talking about.

It seems like "train crash" is the new "airplane crash".

 

Seems or google need to get involved. That way the oncoming train would be alerted or the sided train would detect the switch position or something. I don't know but, something is missing here? Autonomy maybe? I mean since we can't train people properly maybe remove people out of the loop.

kv