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Feds Order Amtrak To Turn On System That Would've Prevented Crash
McGruber writes: Last Tuesday evening, northbound Amtrak Northeast Regional train No. 188 derailed on a curve in Philadelphia, killing eight passengers. The train was traveling in excess of 100 mph, while the curve had a passenger-train speed limit of 50 mph. In response, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is issuing formal emergency orders that will require Amtrak to make sure automatic train control systems work Northbound through Philadelphia at and near the site of the derailment. The FRA is also requiring that Amtrak assess the risk of all curves along the NEC and increase the amount and frequency of speed limit signs along the railroad. FRA's emergency order is newsworthy because Amtrak's existing signal system could have been configured to prevent a train from exceeding speed limits, according to the Wall Street Journal.
I'm baffled that we just might get self driving cars before self driving trains.
Do I really have to state the obvious? It's on *rails*.
TL;DR: Federal oversight agency orders federal railroad system to implement safety system identified by federal investigators to have been a mitigating factor in this collision, after federal lawmakers gut funding for federal rail line.
We care about this not because of the horrific loss of life or because of the ramifications of revealing the US to be a sinking ship of credit downgrades and crumbling infrastructure. We care about this accident because federal state and local lawmakers both for and against support of a public rail system dodged a bullet because they use that train regularly. the Amtrak stretch that collapsed under the burden of bureaucratic fasting could have been carrying a senator from his cloistered mcmansion to his cloistered chamber in Washington DC. That fact alone will see that this lapse in judgement is never again to be repeated. Until it is, and in which case the next incident of mass fatality due to blind ignorance and willful endangerment will be judged according to its plutocratic impact.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Equality before Equations!!:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The news reports all say the train was traveling over 100 MPH when it hit the curve.
I'm not a train guy, but what's the maximum speed for that entire line? For some reason I'm thinking that line isn't ever supposed to hit that kind of speed and it makes me wonder why those engines don't have a speed governor that keeps the train from ever exceeding the maximum speed allowable across the entire route.
I'd also think that such a governor should be tied to GPS to determine speed and if it can do that, it could use position to determine the maximum speed for wherever it is.
Why couldn't the trains simply be equipped with GPS connected to the on-board computers that control the throttle and brakes? Seems like a pretty simple programming exercise to say "hey, our current coordinates indicate the need for reduced speed", then adjust throttle and/or brakes as required. I understand the need for integration into the greater system to prevent accidents from trains following too closely, etc, but even using GPS as a failsafe mechanism could have prevented this derailment.
I was asking similar questions after the Lac Megantic disaster. Having a train a) apply its own brakes if the train is moving when it shouldn't be, and b) send out a distress call if it can't stop itself, isn't rocket science; and it isn't even expensive. Why is the whole railroad industry on this continent so far behind the technology curve?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
A locked cockpit door could have prevented 9/11. Why the rush to create TSA? Because politicians must be seen to do something after a horrible tragedy. Saying, "C'est la vie" and treating us like grown ups would make too much fucking sense.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Wall Street Analyst Encouraged Rail Company to Lobby Against Train Safety Rules
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/15/wall-street-analyst-demanded-rail-industry-invest-lobbying-train-speed-safety-regulations/
By Lee Fang (@lhfang)
05/15/2015 11:26 AM
Positive Train Control, a technology system used to monitor trains and automatically keep them from reaching unsafe speeds, would likely have prevented the tragic Amtrak derailment earlier this week and many other train crashes in recent years, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and train safety experts.
But ever since Congress passed a law in 2008 requiring train companies to implement PTC by the end of 2015, the railroad industry has mounted a ferocious lobbying campaign to delay the rule.
Amtrak, like many other railroads, has been slow to comply. The federal government has been accommodating. And most recently, senators have been fighting primarily over how long an extension should be granted.
Train companies did not want to invest the needed funds to upgrade their systems. But they may have been feeling direct pressure from Wall Street, as well.
In one revealing exchange during an investor call in 2009, Jason Seidl, then a financial analyst with the Dahlman Rose & Co. investment bank, asked Wick Moorman, the chief executive of Norfolk Southern Corp., what “you guys can do in terms of lobbying” on the PTC. And given the costs of complying with the PTC rule, the analyst wanted to know how future investments might be impacted.
Moorman said he and other rail executives were busy working to “educate members of Congress as to what the implications of this legislation are.” Seidl encouraged Moorman to “further educate” them.
Lobbying and other government records show the rail industry extensively sought to influence the Federal Railroad Administration and Congress on the PTC rules. Individual rail companies, including Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, CSX, Canada National Railway Company, among others, hired a small army of lobbyists.
But the largest and most prominent lobbying group to work to delay and weaken the PTC rule was the American Association of Railroads, which employed a veritable who’s who of D.C. consultants and lobbyists, including:
— Linda Daschle, the wife of former Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle, was paid to lobby on the PTC on behalf of the Association of American Railroads.
— The bipartisan lobbying duo of Max Sandlin and Vin Weber, both former congressmen, are registered with the American Association of Railroads to lobby on the PTC. Weber, an advisor to Jeb Bush, is also on the board of the American Action Network, a GOP dark money group that spends millions on election campaigns.
— Another bipartisan lobbying team, including former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., and former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., is registered to lobby on behalf of the American Association of Railroads on PTC.
— The tax returns for the American Association of Railroads lists SKDKnickerbocker as a consultant for public relations and advertising throughout 2011 and 2012. SKDK is a public affairs firm led by senior Democratic staffers including former White House communications director Anita Dunn and CNN contributor Hilary Rosen. SKDK did not return a call requesting information about what services the firm provided for AAR, or if they continue to count AAR as a client.
— Former National Transportation Safety Board Kathryn Higgins was registered on behalf of AAR to lobby on the PTC.
— Former Rep. William Lipinski, D-Ill., was registered on behalf of the AAR to lobby on PTC. Lipinski’s son Dan is now a member of Congress who serves on the House Transportation Committee.
Engineers have complained about the influence of the train
100mph is to slow, trains are irrelevant because they can not complete due to their lack of speed. Pretty much the rest of the developed word has high speed rail while we lack to political will to deal with the nimbly's. Trains will continue to be irrelevant until they become competitive price/time wise.
No sir I dont like it.
Almost 1m people PER DAY is almost no one? Also what makes amtrak organisation idiots? Just because you dont like them?
Why dont you go pay for your own raods, schools, airplains and everything else? Because without the infrustructure our nation would not be as great as it is.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
If it doesn't work, clear your system of WSJ cookies and try again.
The best reporters learn as they go and become experts on new subjects, if given enough time. The wreck of train 188 turns out to have legs, that is, staying power. The story won’t go away. At this point I think the news organizations are doing a great job, and I salute them.
Going slower means we can't push as many trains through, which means we don't make as much money!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's a stupid question because funding did not cause the conductor to turn off the safety mechanism and run the train at 100 mph around a 50 mph bend. It's just ghoulish partisan politicization.
A locked cockpit door could have prevented 9/11
And, since 9/11 has been a contributory cause to at least two crashes. (Helios Airways 522 and Germanwings 9525).
(P.S. before somebody trots out the old "9/11 was the last time a plane could be hijacked" meme check it out --- there have been 10s of hijackings since 9/11).
Watch this Heartland Institute video
And most of the rest of the world slows them down when in urban areas
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I would use the train here if it was more convenient. The train comes through once a day in the early morning. Thats if I want to head west. It would take the same amount of time to my destination, and costs almost as much as driving . If I wanted to do something like go to Atlanta, I would have to take a train to Chicago, then to Washington DC, then down the eastern seaboard to Atlanta. It costs more then a plane ticket, and it takes three flipping days, with hours long layovers in Chicago and Washington.
If Amtrak actually supported the fly overstates, they would be more profitable.
The PTC system has been rolled out in an intelligent manner, and curves that require breaking got it first. What happened in this particular derailment was an anomaly. Any time a massive new system like this is rolled out, decisions have to be made to prioritize which areas are the highest risk, and thus those areas get the system first. In this particular curve, PTC was installed coming into the curve from the other direction, but not in the direction the train was travelling. Why? Because in the direction the train was travelling, the speed limit from the last stop was never greater than the speed in which the curve could be navigated. The train never needed to slow down into the curve when travelling in that direction. However when coming from the other direction, the train needed to slow from a normal 90+ MPH. Thus PTC was rolled out to make sure trains decelerated because that was the greatest risk.
The train accelerated suddenly within one minute of the crash to that high of a speed, so this wasn't an issue of just negligence and forgetting to brake. The train was accelerated far above the speed limit for no good reason, then the engineer tried to brake at the last second but it was too late.
My hunch is he heard that other engineer in another train talking about being hit by projectiles, and so he sped up to try and make it harder for the engine to get hit, and he misjudged when he needed to slow down to take that curve.
Better known as 318230.
I don't care how many people per day or per anything else ride the rails - why should I subsidize their ticket prices?
Here's just one article that talks about the subsidies and where they lie. The northeast regional routes of Amtrak was making over $200 million in profit each year. Once Amtrak became a foster-child of the federal government the federal government started interfering. Most of the money-losing routes that Amtrak operates are there because of demands from local members of Congress in order to gain their support for more subsidies.
Here's another article highlighting that Amtrak's operating law required them to become profitable by 2002. That didn't happen.
Then remove the requirement for them to have to service the midwest, and that they can service only the areas they want. That is not a problem with amtrak, that is a problem with congress.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
We obviously failed to pay the Engineer enough money for him to fucking pay attention to the speed limits.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
1m per day isn't even remotely close to accurate. They did just shy of 31 million in a year. Just under 85,000 per day.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
What do you expect them to say? But really, the PTC system wasn't turned off for shits and grins. It was still being installed and waiting final calibration and certification. Besides the NTSB is still trying to explain the sudden acceleration (twice) as the train approached the curve. One thought is a software glitch with the onboard system. If that is shown to be the case, then PTC wouldn't make much of a difference.
165mph through Ashford, Kent.
(I'm sure there are faster examples, and this isn't the top speed of the train, but that could be the track layout rather than the urban area.)
I'll bet it costs a bundle to make sure it works as well as it is politically necessary for it to work. It's a matter of marginal costs and benefits. Train travel is already extremely safe; adding safety measures to an already safe mode of travel is bound to be challenging.
Imagine a world where half the train engineers were stoned out of their mind,and train derailments were an everyday occurrence. It would be cheap to design and install a safety system that would be a huge success by cutting down derailments from a twice a day occurrence to a once-a-month thing. But we live in a world where passenger train derailments, though terrible, are exceedingly rare. They're not even a once-a-year occurrence. This is the first time in a very long time an Amtrak train has derailed for speed. In the past five years the vast majority of Amtrak accidents have been things on the tracks that shouldn't be there or freight trains colliding with Amtrak trains. The last accident a system like the one we're talking about would likely have prevented was in 2011, when an Amtrak train went through a red signal and collided with another Amtrak train.
In our hypothetical scenario if the new system caused one accident a year that'd be a non-concern because of the hundreds of crashes it prevented. But in real life if the system caused just one accident a year that'd represent a tripling of the accident rate ove no system.
You have to have confidence that an automatic system outperforms humans by an order of magnitude before it is accepted by the public, underwriters, investors etc. Otherwise self-driving cars would be a commonplace option already. They already work, probably better than drivers and certainly better than some.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"ghoulish partisan politicization"? Would that be like putting the entire blame on "the conductor"
Uhh... no? Maybe if President Obama or some other prominent politician was the conductor, maybe?
Ahh so the lessons learned at clapam junction will probably have to be learnt again then
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Before any of the facts are in there is a rush to implement this new technology. So far the only thing we know for sure is that the train was traveling at TWICE the speed it was supposed to. The obvious question is why. Operator error? Some sort of malfunction?
Do we know with any degree of certainty that this new device would have prevented the crash? If so then why wasn't it put there in the first place?
This is what always happens...big tragedy and then the government rushes in to save the day with new regulations and costs. The problem is that often if you look deep enough you will find that government bungling is at least partly to blame in the first place. Just like the oil spills and the banking meltdown. Government fingerprints are all over it and yet none of the blame is.
Here is my prediction:
1) Operator error will be ruled out. This accomplishes two goals: it protects union jobs and it opens the door to new regulations.
2) Finger pointing will continue over who cut funding for Amtrak.
3) More money - a lot more money - will be given to Amtrak
4) Ridership will not increase and Amtrak will continue to be a money pit
Why the FUCK are my tax dollars going to support this idiot organization? Why the FUCK are my tax dollars being wasted on a train service that almost no one uses? If some tiny number of dumbasses cannot afford a car or refuse to just because they prefer to eat granola and hug trees, then let them PAY FOR IT THEMSELVES.
Of course, the incompetent democrat in the white houseopposes all common sense, but at least there is one party working for taxpayers instead of against us.
Instead of defunding Amtrak, maybe it's time to properly fund Amtrak. You seem worried about your tax dollars, but don't seem to mind the billions of them spent on subsidizing air travel and highways and even waterway traffic. What is really lacking in the US is a cohesive transportation policy.
But, hey, it's easier to shout "Defund Amtrak" then it is to actually fix the infrastructure and transportation problems in this country.
Amtrak ridership is 30 million per year (wikipedia). That's 82,000 per day, a pitifully small number for a nationwide service. Contrast that with three commuter rail lines operating out of NYC, each of which carries three times the traffic of Amtrak in the whole country..
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't care how many people per day or per anything else ride the rails - why should I subsidize their ticket prices?
Here's just one article that talks about the subsidies and where they lie. The northeast regional routes of Amtrak was making over $200 million in profit each year. Once Amtrak became a foster-child of the federal government the federal government started interfering. Most of the money-losing routes that Amtrak operates are there because of demands from local members of Congress in order to gain their support for more subsidies.
Here's another article highlighting that Amtrak's operating law required them to become profitable by 2002. That didn't happen.
Why should you subsidize truckers and airports? It costs $3M to build 1 mile of interstate. Sure it looks nice on the back of all those semis that they pay $6,000 in fuel taxes. Too, bad, they don't tell you the damage they do to the pavement is far greater than that. But, of course, if we didn't subsidize the trucking industry and made them pay the real cost of transporting goods, then prices would go up and you, the taxpayer would still be paying for it, plus a profit percentage on top of it.
Why focus on passenger rail as the problem. Most airports are heavily subsidize in the US. Yes, carriers pay gate fees, but those fees do not cover the true cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure.
Face it, Amtrak, highways, airports, etc. are subsidized by the taxpayer because they ultimately benefit the taxpayer.
Yeah! I don't use interstates either! Why should I have to pay a cent!? /s
Almost nobody uses trains outside the Northeast and along the West Coast. In those areas, the trains are very heavily used, and used by all walks of life. The reason why Amtrak looses money each year is because they are forced to support the "fly-over" states which have little ridership.
Those states you refer too defer that cost. Also, the reason Amtrak is forced to support the "fly-over" states is because it is cheaper than building airports and providing air service.
And before somebody says, people choose to live there, that's their problem (or something to the effect), one could turn that around and tell the people of the northeast to grow their own food and drill their own oil because they choose to live there, too.
why should I subsidize their ticket prices?
why am i subsidizing your automobile travel?
why do my taxes pay for military escorts for your gasoline?
why am i paying for your airports?
You are not counting the regional transit agencies. NJ Transit, SEPTA, MBTA, Metro North, etc, also use these same Northeast Corridor rails for commuter service. They carry many many more passengers than amtrak, this is where that number comes from.
Why should I? The person I replied to claimed that Amtrak carried 1m passengers per day.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Clapam junction was a signaling failure, anytime that the trains breaking distance is further than it's sight line this is a possibility. I'll give you a hint rarely is a trains sight line further than it's stopping distance.
No sir I dont like it.
Aircraft operate in three dimensions and must take into account various weather conditions, other air traffic, etc. Aircraft have autopilot.
Trains operate for the most part in one dimension are less affected by weather conditions. Aside from maintenance, keeping them operating safely essentially involves controlling one variable: speed. Trains don't have autopilot?
I must be being greatly naive. I must be missing something. Certainly, when an aircraft crashes, it's big news and often fatal for everyone on board. Perhaps this tends to drive research into making planes safer more so than with trains. I mean, how hard could it be to have someone at the controls of a train who is paying attention and isn't at risk of falling asleep at the wheel?
"Feds Order Amtrak To Turn On System That Would've Prevented Crash."
Amtrak tells Fed: Show me the money!
Esp. after skimming some of the comments....
1. Amtrak was waiting for frequency bandwidth. Lawsuits... and I'd love to know how a company ended up with frequencies that were
intended for safety communication.
2. After 9/11, for *months*, the pilots' union was saying that for trips under 300-400 mi, the train was very much the better option. Republicans,
who are willing to spend tons of public money on airports, and to a lesser extent, roads, have *consistently* underfunded Amtrak.
3. Passenger rail travel, pre-Amtrak, was frequently a loss-leader for the freight business.
4. The idiot who thinks the cost of mass transit ia actually almost on par with Uber is an ignorant idiot. Clue: the regular ads from CSX, about
moving a ton of freight 457 mi on one gallon of fuel.
And, for ironic grins, Boehner and Ryan denying that their personal refusal to fully fund Amtrak has *nothing* to do with the accident is what is
known as "lying under oath", an impeachable offence. And, btw, for refusing to fund Amtrak so that they *could* have gotten this in
sooner, are accessories to manslaughter.
mark
The train between Ottawa and Toronto takes about 4.5 hours while the bus is about 6. The train costs about 1.5 times more but it is way more comfortable and relaxing than the bus. The train in Canada and the US are similar. While I would like a high speed option I'd take the train over the bus every time. And if going from downtown to downtown the airplane is more than twice as expensive with the time working about the same with the travel to/from the airports and waiting for the flight.
I used to have to fight to get a sleeper car on the overnight train from nyc/boston to chicago. Compared to a late booked redeye it was cheaper but took 10 hours longer. For me it get me to city center for 8:30 leaving at 7pm but I was well rested, had a good dinner/breakfast and I was showered and ready to go.
No sir I dont like it.
Bullshit. Name one city served by Amtrak that doesn't have a nearby airport.
Amtrak runs through the midwest as a bribe to midwestern congresscritters.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Give me a legitimate argument why we should be subsidizing Amtrak's daily operating expenses. Because of Congressional interference and failure to follow the 1997 law we have a situation where taxpayers are paying up to half the cost of a ticket for those almost 1 million riders who ride the northeast corridor on a daily basis.
Well, on 9/11, when all planes were grounded, Amtrak looked pretty good. Could the infrastructure in the NE handle an extra 1M commuters? 30% of the bridges there are already classified as sub standard and past their useful life. If the infrastructure can't even be maintained for current levels of use, how will they fare with increased use?
Besides, Amtrak is like the post office, it is a private entity that is extremely regulated by the government. It might make great business sense to stop Saturday delivery for the post office or for Amtrak to cut routes, but they aren't allowed to do so. It's also ironic that most major cities will pay more to build a stadium for a professional team than Amtrak gets in its government subsidy.
Again, why single out passenger trains? Why not all manner of transportation, include air? There is far more spent subsidizing these other modes of transportation than Amtrak gets. There is a reason why every other western country subsidizes rail (and air) transportation and at a far greater level than the US -- it's called the common good.
The existing system (Pulse Code Cab Signaling) is quite limited in many ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse_code_cab_signaling
One of them is that it only offers a few speed limits, so often trains would have to run slower than otherwise needed.
It also doesn't prevent all the cases PTC mandate requires.
I'm not sure if the combination of PCC wht ACSES (another system Amtrak has been deploying) meets the PTC mandate or not.
Properly funding Amtrak is defunding it's money losing routes and extracting the profits from the NE into the general fund.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So it's the same when expressed in injuries/passenger year?
It would be insane to use American railroads. Airplanes are much better for anything too long to drive.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Properly funding Amtrak is defunding it's money losing routes and extracting the profits from the NE into the general fund.
Your anti-Amtrak bias is showing. If you did defund Amtrak and let it close routes, wouldn't it need the profits from the NE to use for operating the NE?
Bullshit. Name one city served by Amtrak that doesn't have a nearby airport.
Amtrak runs through the midwest as a bribe to midwestern congresscritters.
Except that most of those midwest states are red states and want to shut Amtrak down. If Amtrak's future depends on lobbying midwestern congressman, then they aren't doing a very good job at it. As for Amtrak cities without commercial airports, there are many, unless you consider driving 100 to 200 miles to an airport as having a nearby airport. And if they have a small regional airport, you can bet it is heavily subsidized by tax dollars in one form or another.
My understanding is that this accident has nothing to do with infrastructure.
But you certainly would not know that by listening to the media coverage of the accident.
How do we know this accident had anything to do with budget?
What makes you think that only republicans are at fault?
You don't know what the word 'profit' means do you?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If the drive is 10% of the time lost to using the train then the airport is close. If it's less then 100% of the lost time it's 'close enough'.
In general airports are not subsidized. All the medium to large ones turn profits.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Have some sort of system where there it something on the track that gets picked up by the train so that at any given time the train knows exactly what the maximum speed is at that point. Then engineer the train systems to ensure it never exceeds that speed (even if there is a throttle failure causing the throttle to be in the wrong place, the speed regulation system would be a separate system and clamp the speed anyway)
.
Now there might be failures in the speed regulation system but it wouldn't be able to make the train go faster, only slower (meaning the worst that could happen is a train going slower than it should be)
One train breaks the speed limit and they want to change the whole system? Cars break the speed limit all the time.
An engineer driving the train at twice the speed limit, and "doesn't recall" the entire three minutes before the accident.
When a computer needs to take form this engineer, there's already something rotten in the system.