(The following story by Ben Goad and Dug Begley appeared on The Press-Enterprise website on March 4, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It should not have taken September’s deadly Metrolink crash in Chatsworth to spur an array of rail safety measures now being developed by railroads and regulators, a top federal transportation official said Wednesday.
“I think it’s tragic to lose 25 lives before we can take action,” National Transportation Safety Board member Kathryn O’Leary Higgins said toward the end of a two-day hearing into the wreck. “I think the public expects more of us and frankly I’m a little disappointed. I think we’ve got to be tougher on some of these things.”
Higgins said she is encouraged by the progress made since the Sept. 12 crash, such as pledges for new safety systems to help stop trains. But she said lapses in monitoring employees for safety infractions were a critical failing, and serious concerns remain about installing automatic braking systems on trains by a 2015 federal deadline.
Metrolink engineer Robert Sanchez, whose train sped through a stop signal before it collided with an oncoming Union Pacific freight train, has been found to have routinely sent and received text messages while on duty. He also invited unauthorized riders onto the train, letting at least one take the controls a few days before the wreck.
Sanchez was among those killed.
The braking systems and better monitoring of engineers to discourage cell phone use could have averted the crash, the findings suggest.
Before the wreck, there was no federal ban on cell phone use by conductors and engineers on trains or the practice of allowing people into the trains, Federal Railroad Administration officials testified.
Although Metrolink had policies in place against both, the railroad administration and inspectors from the California Public Utilities Commission — which regulates the state’s rails — could do nothing to enforce them because there is no federal law.
There still are no federal rules against unauthorized riders, but the railroad administration issued an emergency order banning cell phone use in the cabs of locomotives. The conductor of the Union Pacific train was also found to have used his cell phone on duty, and he tested positive for marijuana after the accident.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Railroad officials repeatedly testified that train crews are difficult to monitor. Some carriers, including Metrolink, are moving forward with plans to mount inward facing cameras in train cabs, but that could lead to a fight with unions, who raised concerns about the proposal, citing privacy concerns.
Perhaps the most important safety measure sparked by the crash is positive train control, a long sought-after — and expensive — computer system that can stop trains automatically. Officials said the system could have prevented the Chatsworth crash. Federal rail safety legislation passed a month after the crash mandates the nation’s passenger rails be outfitted with the technology by 2015.
“It is a daunting, daunting task,” testified Jeff Young, an assistant vice president for Union Pacific.
Young said there are almost 25,000 units that must be installed along rail lines throughout the country and about 6,000 locomotives that need the proper technology. Following his testimony, Young said he is only 80 to 90 percent certain the deadline can be met.
Higgins said Young’s testimony left her pessimistic.
“I think he said very clearly that they’re not going to be able to equip 6,000 locomotives, and they’re not going to meet the 2015 deadline,” she said.
Positive train control is more difficult and much more costly to install in Southern California because of the number of trains sharing tracks and the mountainous terrain. Installing the technology, which relies on global positioning systems and onboard computers to track trains, could cost more than $200 million.
Many major changes to Metrolink’s safety programs have come after accidents. After a 2002 crash in Placentia in which most of the injuries were caused by tables in the passenger cars, the agency and rail car manufacturers designed collapsible tables.
When a 2005 Glendale crash exposed problems with Metrolink pushing passenger cars with the locomotive in the rear, officials created passenger cars with more crash-resistant exteriors to take the lead.
Following the Chatsworth crash, Metrolink’s board of directors pledged to improve rail safety in Southern California, including installing systems capable of slowing or stopping trains.
But the technologies have been available for years, and officials failed to fight successfully for them. Automatic train stop, which uses sensors on the tracks to alert engineers that they have passed a red signal, has been available since the 1960s. Officials estimated installing the system would cost $1.1 million.
Getting state and federal approvals and installing the system should take until late 2009, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steven Kulm said in December.
Continuing research
Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said the agency has always pushed for safety innovations, despite some coming after when they could have saved lives or lessened injuries.
“All have been researched and studied for several years prior to the incidents that seem to have suddenly prompted their invention,” Oaxaca said.
But he noted Metrolink can learn more.
“Although accidents are tragic, they nonetheless provide an opportunity to learn and apply lessons with tangible changes,” he said.
The United Transportation Union will back the installation of cameras “once the proper safeguards for privacy are in place,” said J.R. Cumby, the union’s safety team coordinator. Cumby said paying for the cameras and monitoring them would also be problematic.
Wednesday’s hearing represented the latest phase of what is expected to be a yearlong investigation into the crash. The safety board will release a probable cause for the accident and unveil a series of recommendations for how to address the gaps in safety they have uncovered.
Riders at the downtown Riverside station were not shaken by the reports that safety on trains is tenuous. Some said fatal automobile accidents don’t keep them from driving, so Chatsworth won’t keep them off Metrolink.
“It’s tragic,” Ted Davis, 24, said. “But … it’s not going to change me.”