(The following editorial appeared on the Sacramento Bee website on September 24.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Was fatigue a factor in the commuter train accident in Southern California earlier this month? Many rail safety experts believe it could have been.
Robert Sanchez, the engineer aboard the Metrolink train that failed to stop at a red light and caused the accident, had been working a mind-numbing split shift all week. The day of the accident, he began work at 6 a.m. and worked until 9.30 a.m. He had a 4 1/2-hour break and was back on the job at 2 p.m. for a shift that was to go to 9 that night. He was on his fifth 15-hour workday, with 10 to 12 of those hours spent at the controls of a 140-ton locomotive.
Transportation safety officials have long recognized fatigue as a leading cause of railroad accidents. Back-to-back split shifts, common in commuter rail systems, are particularly dangerous. Engineers complain about operating in a state of almost permanent jet lag. Studies show that train operators working such schedules don’t get the kind of restorative sleep necessary to remain alert.
The National Transportation Safety Board has called upon the railroad industry to adjust work schedules to deal with fatigue. Legislation proposed by Congress last year would have expanded rest periods between work shifts for train crews from a minimum of eight hours currently to at least 10 hours. Both private freight railroads and public commuter rail officials opposed the measure, which had stalled until this week.
In the wake of the Metrolink crash, rail safety has taken on new urgency. The stalled rail safety bill, HR 2095, is now set to be voted on in Congress, possibly as early as this week. It would require more reasonable work and rest rules for train crews. It would also mandate fail-safe train control systems designed to stop trains automatically when human operators bypass stop signals.
Sadly, reforms come too late to prevent the Metrolink crash. Still, if Congress acts, lessons learned in that tragedy can protect future train crews and their passengers.