(The following article by Chris Mondics was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on May 12.)
WASHINGTON — The cracked brake rotors that idled Amtrak’s Acela fleet could have caused a catastrophic accident, yet maintenance crews never were trained to look for the problem, according to testimony before a congressional committee yesterday.
Fred Weiderhold, Amtrak’s inspector general, who is probing the Acela problems, said that the original maintenance instructions called for inspecting the brake rotors for cracks but that the information never filtered down through layers of subcontractors to the crews that did the safety inspections.
A sharp-eyed inspector with the Federal Railroad Administration discovered the cracks, affecting all of Amtrak’s Acela trains, during unrelated tests April 14 to determine whether the Acela could be run at higher speeds.
“What we found is that specific instructions to look at the rotors never made it to the floor,” Weiderhold told a hearing before the House Transportation Committee’s railroads subcommittee. “So we had a breakdown in the safety inspection process.”
Separately, officials of Amtrak and Bombardier, one of the Acela manufacturers, said they still had not determined what caused the cracks, suggesting that Amtrak might not be able to hold to its timetable of getting the train back into service beginning in August.
Amtrak pulled its Acela fleet from service April 15 after the cracks were discovered and has been providing alternate service with its high-speed Metroliner trains. The Metroliners have been able to pick up much of the slack, but not all of it.
William Crosbie, Amtrak’s senior vice president for operations, told the committee that the rail line was losing about $1 million a week because the Acelas were not in operation.
“The loss of revenue has been and will be substantial until the trains are returned to service,” he said.
The Acela line, which went into service in 2000, was supposed to provide the financial foundation for Amtrak’s struggling operation. And while it now accounts for nearly $300 million a year in ticket revenue, about 25 percent of all Amtrak funding, it has become, for critics and supporters alike, a symbol of poor planning and mismanagement.
JayEtta Hecker of the Government Accountability Office said the Acelas were rushed into service by Amtrak officials who were under pressure to begin collecting ticket revenue.
“There was extremely abbreviated testing on this train,” Hecker said.
Amtrak is a national rail line founded in 1970 from the remnants of other systems that found it unprofitable to provide long-distance commuter service. It operates a 22,000-mile network, but it has been starved for cash from the beginning.
Now the White House is proposing that Amtrak be broken up and operated by groups of states, which the White House says would be in a better position to determine which lines are viable.
Amid this bitter debate, the Acela’s problems are serving as ammunition for both sides. At yesterday’s hearing, Rep. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) said chronic underfunding by the government had led to Acela’s problems.
“I hope we can correct the misperception that this problem is Amtrak’s fault,” he said. “I believe that the real problem is unrealistic expectations and insufficient support that Amtrak has suffered from the very beginning.”
Republican Rep. John L. Mica of Florida said Amtrak was to blame. “This is probably the most costly and mismanaged rail project in the history of the world,” he said.