Written by: William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief UPDATED APRIL 5, 2016: Amtrak Train 89, the New York City-Savannah, Ga., Palmetto, partially derailed at Chester, Pa., approximately 15 miles southwest of Philadelphia, on the Northeast Corridor early Sunday, April 3, 2016, after striking a maintenance-of-way backhoe on the tracks. Two Amtrak maintenance-of-way employees were killed and 35 on board the train were injured, one seriously. Amtrak Train 89 had 341 passengers and seven crew members on board at the time. Killed were the equipment operator and a track supervisor. Debris from the crash flew into the first two cars, injuring passengers. The train was traveling at 106 mph, 4 mph below its maximum authorized speed of 110 mph. Amtrak suspended service along the Northeast Corridor between New York and Philadelphia, and SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) also briefly halted service. Operations returned to normal by evening. This was the second Amtrak wreck involving fatalities in the space of about a year. On May 12, 2015, the derailment of New York-bound Amtrak Train 188 at Frankford Curve in Philadelphia left eight people dead and more than 200 injured. Train 188 derailed due to an overspeed condition on a curve at which there was no civil speed restriction enforcement in place at the time. This incident begs important safety questions: Amtrak completed installation of ACSES (Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System, its form of Positive Train Control), on the Northeast Corridor late last year. ACSES/PTC is required to include "roadway worker protection" designed to prevent tragedies such as what occured at Chester, Pa., on the NEC. If roadway worker protection was available and functional, how could this accident have happened? Does this accident indicate that ACSES—indeed, no PTC system—is 100% fool-proof and fail-safe? Was the backhoe on the same track as the train, or was it on an adjacent track but still foulling the running track? Noted one industry observer: “A fully functioning PTC system would have a GPS receiver and data radio on every piece of railroad m/w equipment to indicate whether or not it has cleared the track so that the dispatcher can grant an authority for the train to proceed through the work zone.” Added another: “Just like any other engineering system, PTC only works when used properly, meaning it is still necessary for a track gang to formally establish a work zone. It is not known if the workers were actually on track, where track should be out of service, or working under a fouling order. Prior to PTC, a track outage would have been protected by a stop barricade that is clamped to the rail and provides a positive shunt, which means even if a train is misrouted into the block, the most favorable signal it would receive would be a Restricting. The message here is that, iwith cab signals and positive shunt barricades, the work zone would have been protected." A veteran signal engineer writes: “PTC is not the magic weapon that will end all accidents forever, as there is always something wrong with everything—even PTC.The devil is always in the details. “The biggest problem with roadway worker protection is that it doesn’t necessarily shunt the track circuit, which—as everyone keeps forgetting—is at the heart of most of today’s PTC applications. Track circuits and positive circuit indications of switch positions is what helps greatly to keep three of the four cardinal PTC mandate principles honest.* Unfortunately, roadway worker protection and the non-shunting roadway equipment problem (most backhoes are not hi-rail mounted and therefore cannot shunt a track circuit)—regardless of how the PTC of choice handles it—is ultimately only as good as the people picking the same track in the office and in the field 100% of the time. “The normal procedure in the NEC is to block the exit at the last interlocking before reaching the worksite in each direction. The current signal practice on the NEC has been to always provide a vital exit block on every main track leaving each interlocking with control from the dispatcher’s office, and a positive indication back on the dispatcher’s display showing which track is blocked. The signal system then positively prevents any signal from displaying an aspect more permissive than “Stop Signal” for any route leading to that exit. ACSES then enforces “PTS” (Positive Train Stop) at all “Stop Signals”—thus preventing any train from entering the out-of-service track betweeen the adjacent interlockings. “Where there are multiple tracks and interlockings relatively close together, taking the entire track out of service between interlockings seems to be the most positive, effective, cleanest and safest way to do it.” Was the work zone protected? Was the correct track taken out of service? Additional information obtained by Railway Age indicates that the backhoe was working 4 Track (the westbound outermost local track but its boom and dipper (bucket) were fouling 3 Track, the adjacent westbound express track typically used by Amtrak trains. Did the track gang have the authority ?from the dispatcher to foul the adjacent track (for example, to swing the backhoe's boom around? If it did, the dispatcher is most likely at fault for allowing the train to proceed at maximum authorized speed on a track protected by a fouling order. If the track gand did not have (or did not request) a fouling order, then it is at fault. Existing operating rules mandate that track work must be suspended until a train is passing through the work zone on a track adjacent to the one being worked on has cleared. If any case, under these circumstances, ACSES/PTC would not have prevented the train from striking the backhoe. Only a thorough, time-consuming investigation will uncover the facts, and the answers to questions like these as well as others that will undoubtedly arise. The NTSB and the FRA have investigators on the scene for this purpose. Noted one observer: ‘The NTSB has all the information it needs to quickly determine exactly what happened: The train's event recorder, forward- and inward-facing cameras in the locomotive cab, radio transmissions, dispatcher records, etc. So why will it take 12 to 18 months to issue an official finding and a final report. By now, anyone involved knows exactly what took place.” * Positive train control (PTC) is a system of functional requirements for monitoring and controlling train movements to provide increased safety. The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) describes PTC as having four primary characteristics: Train separation or collision avoidance. Line speed enforcement. Temporary speed restrictions. Rail worker wayside safety. Continue reading...
