(The following story by Erik N. Nelson appeared on The Argus website on February 3.)
PLEASANTON, Calif. — Freight railroad Union Pacific is installing cameras on its locomotives with the grisly objective of recording accidents involving their trains colliding with vehicles and pedestrians.
The railroad, which owns and controls many of the rail corridors in Northern California, including one through the Tri-City area, is installing the digital video units to provide better accident information and clues to improving safety at marked crossings and other locations, said Mark Davis, spokesman for the Omaha-based railroad.
“We have already found that the track image recorders have really helped us,” Davis said.
Besides assisting in the investigation of accidents, “it helps analyze what occurred, to be able to determine with local and state officials if anything else could (improve) the safety of the crossing.”
The announcement came Monday just as Caltrain recorded its first pedestrian death of the year in San Mateo.
Passenger railroads in Northern California, including Amtrak’s inter-city service, have indicated an interest in the cameras but have yet to install them in anything other than pilot programs.
Unlike the slower-moving freight railroads, passenger lines such as Caltrain’s between Gilroy and San Francisco, the Capitol Corridor between Auburn and San Jose and thestate-owned San Joaquins that connect Oakland with Stockton and Bakersfield travel up to 79 mph and strike pedestrians and vehicles with alarming regularity.
Through October 2007 there were 111 railway deaths in California, 33 in the Bay Area. Nearly all resulted from trains hitting people, and to a lesser extent vehicles, on the tracks.
State transportation officials are looking at the possibility of funding cameras on the front of passenger trains — on locomotives and the trains’ leading cars, for those that make return trips in reverse — in order to better monitor safety conditions on the tracks, said Bill Bronte, chief of the rail division of Caltrans, the state transportation department,.
“They could see what was the driver’s behavior that may have contributed to the accident, or what was the behavior of somebody off to the side,” Bronte said. “Now, you don’t have any evidence of what really happened,” beyond the train’s speed, braking and whether its horn sounded that are kept by an onboard event recorder.
Caltrain officials are interested in the cameras, but so far have not found a source for the $500,000 they’re estimated to cost. Capitol Corridor officials are preparing to request bids for such a camera system, and expect to have it installed by next year, said railroad spokeswoman Luna Salaver.