(The following article by Larry King was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on July 25.)
PHILADELPHIA — While it will be months before federal investigators’ final report on the cause of the July 1 head-on collision of two Regional Rail trains, SEPTA officials already know what one safety demand will be.
“I can tell you unequivocally that they will recommend a train-control system – cab signals,” said Patrick Nowakowski, director of SEPTA operations.
Cab signals are safety devices that, through a combination of on-train signals and automatic braking, trim the chances of collisions and minimize the harm when accidents do occur.
SEPTA has yet to install this equipment on the track where the accident happened on R2 Warminster line in Abington July 1. About 23 percent of SEPTA Regional Rail routes remain without cab signals, though a multimillion-dollar capital program to add them continues, and could take up to a decade to complete.
Federal officials have been urging installation of automatic train control systems since 1987. When SEPTA took over Regional Rail service in 1983, none of its inherited tracks had them.
“It’s been on our back ever since to try to do that,” Nowakowski said, but funding crunches have slowed those efforts.
SEPTA has just finished an $80 million renewal project from Wayne Junction to Glenside, including cab signals, new overhead lines, and three new interlockings, where trains change from one track to another.
That project originally was scheduled to begin in 1996 but was axed during a budget crisis.
Next up is a $14 million project that will bring cab signals to the R5 line between Glenside and Lansdale. That should be finished by late next year.
Equipping the rest of the system could take eight to 10 more years.
“It is our intention to keep on doing this,” Nowakowski said. “Funding permitting, there is no reason that we would not.”
Acting on electronic transmissions within the rails, cab signals are displayed constantly to engineers, so there is less chance of missing a command than with wayside signals posted along the tracks.
Cab signal systems also can override an engineer who is operating unsafely. They can slow or stop trains that run red signals or are speeding.
“You have a signal with you all the time; it travels with you,” Nowakowski said. “But instead of just the engineer knowing what the signal is, the train also knows. If the signal says to proceed at 40 m.p.h. and you’re doing 60 and don’t respond within a couple of seconds, it’s going to brake the train. The engineer has no choice at that point.”
Whether cab signals might have prevented the Abington crash depends on what went wrong. The southbound train was traveling at less than 15 m.p.h. when it collided with a stationary northbound train along the 1400 block of Grovania Avenue. Cab signals typically won’t stop a train that runs through a red signal at less than 20 m.p.h., Nowakowski said.
Either way, the low speed – and the ability of the northbound train to stop before impact – helped prevent more serious injuries or fatalities.
Much faster, and the outcome “could have been catastrophic,” SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said.
Three crew members and 31 passengers were treated for injuries at area hospitals, according to NTSB preliminary findings. Three were admitted.
Among the injured were the northbound engineer, identified by Abington police and hospital officials as Michaeline Dunaj; and the southbound engineer, identified as Silvino Alexander.
Dunaj remained off-duty last week, recovering from her injuries, SEPTA officials said. Alexander, however, has been suspended for 30 days with the intent to dismiss.
Maloney said the suspension was for rule violations but would not elaborate. National Transportation Safety Board officials, who are investigating the crash, have asked SEPTA not to discuss specifics of the accident during the investigation.
When things go wrong on a single-track stretch, the results can be especially grim.
About 14 percent of SEPTA’s Regional Rail route mileage is on single tracks. When trains are headed toward each other on single tracks, signal systems and dispatchers direct one of the trains onto a side track, known as a siding, until the other one passes.
Investigators have not disclosed what prompted the engineer of the northbound train to stop shortly after entering the single-track section.
“Single tracking in itself is not inherently all that much more dangerous,” said Howard Roberts, a former SEPTA deputy general manager. “But if there is a failure of the signal system or of the engineer, a head-on collision is likely to produce more mayhem than a rear-end collision.”
Sometimes such tragedy has served as a catalyst.
In 1996, an NJ Transit engineer misread a stop signal and struck an oncoming rush-hour train in Secaucus, N.J. Two engineers and a passenger were killed. As a result, NJ Transit sped installation of automatic train controls; 97 percent of the system is equipped.
“Certainly, by virtue of having this in place, we are operating a much safer railroad, one of the safest in the country,” NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said.