Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
There are a bunch of things going on here so bear with me.
1. The speed immediately before the curve is 80mph. The curve itself is rated for 80mph but the official speed limit is 50. Why the difference? Because rail companies take passenger comfort seriously and 80mph through that curve would require passengers wear seatbelts and might possibly cause slight travel sickness. As an aside trains generally start at Philly by accelerating with an open (full) throttle. When they reach 80mph, it's usually at the point in the journey where the train now needs to slow to 50mph to pass the curve. Supposedly the brakes weren't activated and throttle closed, possibly because the driver was distracted by having a rock thrown at him, but... WE DON'T KNOW THIS and the headline of this story is premature.
2.Both ATC and PTC do as you describe. They include mechanisms to monitor the speed of trains and slow them if they're speeding. PTC even includes a GPS element. ATC is older, creakier, but...
3. ATC was not installed on the section immediately North of Philly because, reportedly, Amtrak engineers at the time didn't believe any trains would actually reach 80mph before hitting that curve. This was probably true at the time.
4. In the last year, Amtrak has introduced new locomotives, including the one used for Amtrak 188. These locomotives are considerably more powerful than the "Meatballs" they replaced.
So, that's currently the thinking. The most likely scenario right now appears to be that the engineer was distracted by rocks being thrown at the train at the critical moment where he was supposed to close the throttle and engage the brakes. Because it was a newer, more powerful, locomotive than the safety systems there were originally designed for, the train was able to accelerate to 105mph during that distracted period. Because there were no ATC or PTC systems active in that area, the train wasn't stopped automatically.
That's the _most likely_ scenario. There are many other possibilities, including a software problem on the locomotive (which, depending on the nature of the bug) could have rendered PTC or ATC ineffectual given they rely upon the loco to, you know, respond to its commands. The latter is unlikely, but it hasn't been ruled out yet.
We should do what commonsense requires, the accident may or may not have been caused by a lack of ATC, but we do know now that there exists the possibility of speed related accidents in that area and need it to be addressed. In the mean time, we should wait for the NTSB to do its job.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.