Amtrak crash: Why safety improvements lag even as industry advances
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Patrik Jonsson Staff writer
| Savannah, Ga.
Passengers on the Amtrak 501 leaving Seattle for Portland, Ore. were handed commemorative lanyards early Monday morning. After all, the new Cascades train was on its maiden run, part of a much-awaited expansion of commuter rail in the eco-conscious Pacific Northwest.
As the brand new 4,400-hp 鈥淐harger鈥� locomotive got underway 鈥� and just after one passenger quipped, 鈥淲ow, we鈥檙e going fast鈥� 鈥� witnesses said they heard 鈥渃rumpling, crashing, and screaming鈥� as the 13-car train derailed near Tacoma, Wash., killing three people and injuring more than 100.
The crash caught American commuter rail service 鈥� including railroad companies and a federally-funded manager, Amtrak 鈥� at a juncture of colliding trends: ridership is growing rapidly even as the industry grapples with inertia over safety problems. The result has been three major derailments in three years.
As investigators focus on track conditions and whether the 501 was going too fast into a curve 鈥� preliminary reports suggested the train was traveling at nearly 80 miles per hour in a 30 m.p.h. zone 鈥� questions are already arising over why a long-delayed emergency braking system called positive train control, or PTC, wasn鈥檛 operational a decade after Congress had mandated it.
The answers provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), railroad experts say, are likely to touch on Amtrak鈥檚 cultural struggles to enforce safety rules, including an age-old reluctance in the railroad business to make improvements without clear profit incentives.
鈥淭his was a new route around the Tacoma area, that was the first train over it.鈥� The bridge looked rickety, and it鈥檚 on a curve 鈥� all of which raises questions about whether the engineer was exceeding 79 miles per hour while there was no system in place to enforce a lower speed limit,鈥� says MIT-trained signaling expert Steven Ditmeyer of Alexandria, Va., who has expressed reservations about riding Amtrak. 鈥淚鈥檓 hoping it will be a wake-up call.鈥�
The accident occurred after Amtrak registered a record year in 2016, during which it served 31.2 million riders. Ridership has grown steadily, especially on mid-range trips and commuter runs like the Cascade in the Pacific Northwest and the Downeaster in New England, both of which have seen double-digit percentage growth year-to-year.
The $181-million Cascades expansion was a bid to build ridership by increasing service and cutting 10 minutes off the Seattle-to-Portland run. That meant business travelers who have been used to disembarking at lunchtime could instead be in town for a 10 o鈥檆lock meeting.
Yet there were warning signs. Don Anderson, the mayor of Lakewood, Wash., warned on Dec. 4 that high-speed trains along the new route would make it 鈥渧irtually inevitable that someone is going to get killed鈥� without first making more improvements to signage and crossing grades.
And there appeared to be immediate similarities to crashes in 2015 and 2016 in which investigators cited operator error and a lax safety culture as contributing to deadly derailments outside Philadelphia and in Chester, Pa. In both cases, the NTSB found, a fully operable PTC system could have avoided the deadly destruction.
Completing the Chester derailment probe on Nov. 16, NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt wrote that 鈥淎mtrak鈥檚 safety culture is failing 鈥� and is primed to fail again 鈥� until and unless Amtrak changes the way it practices safety management.鈥�
Amtrak insists it is in the process of implementing 13 major new safety recommendations. What is more, the new Cascades train was fully equipped with PTC. The tracks, however, which are owned by Sound Transit, are not scheduled to receive the improvements until the second quarter of 2018 鈥� several months after the inauguration of the new service.
A Union Pacific Railroad veteran, Jeff Young, recently told the American Association of Railroads that such delays are entirely due to the sheer complexity of building a from-scratch geo-mapping system of wayside signals across 60,000 miles of track. Some 2,400 engineers are at work on the project, he said, noting that 鈥渋t is like creating an entirely new air traffic control system.鈥�
Yet the $10 billion price tag for installing PTC has also challenged the bottom line-focused rail industry, which historically requires an 鈥渆conomic case鈥� for improvements, as Bob Tuzik, a journalist who covers the railroad industry, wrote recently in 鈥淚nterface: The Journal of Wheel/Rail Interaction.鈥�
鈥淥ne problem was that capacity improvements and running time improvements did not come about, but additional costs were incurred,鈥� says Mr. Ditmeyer.
But tying the deeper issue of Amtrak鈥檚 safety culture to the Tacoma crash 鈥渋s in the apples and oranges world,鈥� argues University of Delaware railway expert Allan Zarembski, author of 鈥淭he Art and Science of Rail Grinding.鈥�
鈥淭he railroads are working on PTC, and it wasn鈥檛 implemented [on the new Cascades line], but that is not a surprise鈥� given that Congress saw fit to extend the implementation deadline to 2018, he says.
鈥淲hether the railroads agree or disagree with PTC implementation, they are required by law to have it implemented, and they are working aggressively to do that,鈥� he adds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something you can turn around and say, 鈥楲et鈥檚 do it today.鈥� It is very complex, expensive, difficult, and takes time.鈥�
Before he came over to rail travel from Delta Air Lines, new Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson received an award from air traffic control leadership for his focus on the technical aspects of getting airplanes from point A to point B on time, and safely. That focus included pushing 鈥渘ext gen鈥� air traffic control systems 鈥� which are in many ways similar to PTC.
In that way, Mr. Anderson may be primed to understand 鈥渢he subtleties of this command and control, this train control,鈥� says Ditmeyer.
鈥淚鈥檓 right now personally looking to [Anderson] to take a leadership role on safety,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ecause at Delta he understood that [next-generation signaling] affected the efficiency of the total operation, whereas most other railroad CEOs view the signal people as problems, because they are the guys that stop the trains.鈥�
