Speeding train in deadly Washington crash was waiting for safety system to be fitted
Critical speed-control technology that could have prevented a derailment near Seattle was not active before the train set off on its maiden voyage, it has emerged.
Work to install the sophisticated, GPS-based technology known as positive train control isn't expected to be completed until next spring on the newly opened 15-mile line where the train crashed, according to Sound Transit, the public agency that owns the tracks.
The train was travelling at 80mph in a 30mph zone when it raced off the rails as they curved toward a bridge, hurtling train cars onto a highway below, investigators said. Three people were killed, and dozens were injured. Investigators say they are looking into whether the engineer was distracted.
A positive train control system could have detected the speeding and automatically applied the brakes to stop the train, said Najmedin Meshkati, a University of Southern California professor who has studied the technology for three decades. "It is another layer of safety," he said.
Sensors had already been installed on the section where the train derailed, but the system needs to be synchronised, tested and certified before it goes online, a Sound Transit spokesman said.
Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson said that "no one wants PTC more than me" but would not directly answer questions about why it is taking so long to get the speed-control technology up and running across the board.
"I'm a huge believer in positive train control," he said at a news conference. "It just makes so much scientific sense."
Mr Anderson said the company's safety culture can continue to improve and said the crash should be seen as a "wake-up call."
"It's not acceptable that we're involved in these types of accidents," he said.
Rail firms are under government orders to install positive train control by the end of 2018 after the industry lobbied Congress to extend earlier deadlines, citing complexity and cost.
Union Pacific, America's largest freight carrier, said it was spending about $2.9bn on the technology. It is estimated that the industry will spend a total of about $10bn implementing the systems.
Amtrak train derails from bridge in Washington State
Monday's deadly crash is just the latest example of something experts say could have been prevented if the technology was in place to slow down the train when engineers go too fast, get distracted or fall ill.
US investigators have listed a lack of such a system as a contributing factor in at least 25 crashes over the last 20 years, including two in the last four years where a train approached sharp curves at more than double the speed limit.
A Metro-North train crashed in New York City in 2013, killing four people, when an engineer with sleep apnea dozed off. An Amtrak train crashed in Philadelphia in 2015, killing eight people, when investigators say the engineer was distracted by radio traffic and lost his bearings.
Timeline Recent Amtrak derailments
Positive train control was installed on 23 percent of passenger route miles and 37 percent of freight route miles as of July, the last time the Federal Railroad Administration updated its online tracker for the technology.
It is activated on the tracks Amtrak owns along the Northeast Corridor, from Boston to Washington, D.C., and on Amtrak's Michigan line. Many of its locomotives are equipped for positive train control.
Throughout the rest of the country, Amtrak operates on track owned by freight carriers and other entities that have made varying progress on installing the technology.
The National Transportation Safety Board first recommended the use of "automatic train control" in 1970, a year after two Penn Central commuter trains collided, killing four and injuring 43.
The industry was opposed for decades until a Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a freight train near Los Angeles in 2008. Investigators said the train's engineer was texting and ran a stop signal, killing 25 people.
"It's a good fail-safe for human error," said Fran Kelly, assistant general manager for SEPTA, the Philadelphia-area commuter line that adopted positive train control early. "It's using the best technologies available to complement what the human engineer is doing - the human element of it."
