(The following article by Rick Brundrett was posted on the State website on January 8.)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation say they are developing warning systems for S.C. railroad tracks that lack electronic warning signals. But, critics say, the companies can use existing technology to improve safety along their so-called “dark territory.”
Norfolk said in September it would begin testing a warning system known as Optimized Train Control.
The system would “automatically enforce speed and operating limits to prevent collisions and other train accidents, provide improved visibility of network conditions and promote more efficient operations,” the company said in a news release.
The railroad said it would install the system first on a 120-mile, dark-territory line between Charleston and Columbia and that rollout “on other NS lines will follow.”
The railroad didn’t provide specific dates. Officials said the testing period was expected to last about two years.
James Sottile, a retired Federal Railroad Administration signal expert from Massachusetts, said the system could prevent another Graniteville-type crash.
But Sottile — who works for Florida-based PVB Consulting Inc., a private railroad consulting firm hired by lawyers representing Graniteville crash victims — questioned Norfolk’s commitment.
“Show me the money. Where is it?” he said. “I’d love to see the hardware, software.”
Sottile said several manual switches immediately outside Graniteville already are linked to “distant switch indicators” — devices that look somewhat like traffic lights — to warn oncoming trains of switch positions.
Such a device could have prevented the Graniteville wreck, Sottile said. He didn’t know why one wasn’t installed there.
Under federal regulations, he said, the Graniteville area is considered dark territory even with those devices because they can’t tell oncoming trains of problems other than at a particular switch.
In 2000, CSX began testing a safety system called Communications Based Train Management on a 127-mile stretch between Spartanburg and Augusta.
In its 1998 application to the Federal Railroad Administration, the railroad described it as a “safety overlay” system that can enforce a train’s movement and speed by applying a “penalty brake application to stop the train if necessary.”
But the railroad still considers the Spartanburg-Augusta section of rail dark territory because the system hasn’t been implemented permanently, pending review by the Federal Railroad Administration, CSX spokesman Gary Sease said.
In South Carolina, CSX and Norfolk use an electronic warning system known as an Automatic Block System on less than half of their track.
Sottile said the system can warn oncoming trains of misaligned switches and broken rails. But Gus Demott, chairman of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen’s Southeast General Committee, said the warning system that CSX and Norfolk use in South Carolina generally detects only broken rails or other trains.
Demott said most manual switches in South Carolina don’t have any electronic monitors, which, he added, could have prevented the Graniteville wreck.