(Bloomberg News circulated the following story by Angela Greiling Keane on March 4, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Calls may increase to put cameras or voice recorders inside locomotive cabs as investigators sift the evidence into what caused last year’s Los Angeles commuter train crash that killed 25 people.
“Where we’re going with this is technology,” said Gregg Konstanzer, assistant general manager of Connex Railroad LLC, which employed the Metrolink commuter train engineer. “The onboard cameras with the recording, I don’t know how one can argue against that.”
Investigators are piecing together the events leading up to the Sept. 12 collision of a Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific Corp. freight train that was the deadliest U.S. passenger rail crash since 1993. Crew members on both trains were sending text messages before the accident, an inquiry showed.
Metrolink will install cameras inside all its locomotives and lead passenger cars, becoming the first U.S. railroad to do so, Metrolink board chairman Keith Millhouse said today in a statement released after the National Transportation Safety Board concluded a hearing on the collision. The cameras will be ”a significant deterrent” to unauthorized actions, Millhouse said.
Voice recorders could be as useful in examining rail accidents as they are in incidents involving commercial airplanes and ships, in which they are now required, NTSB member Kitty Higgins said outside the hearing.
“How can we do a better job investigating these accidents?” Higgins said in an interview.
Labor unions representing train operators, which have protested requiring recording devices, said they only object to using the data for purposes other than accident probes.
Safeguards for Privacy
“We do not object to camera installation in the cab of locomotives once the proper safeguards for privacy are in place and the recorded data is used only for accident investigation and not subverted for use as a discipline tool,” said Frank Wilner, a spokesman for the United Transportation Union, whose members include railroad conductors.
“The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen opposes video cameras or voice recorders in locomotive engine cabs unless there are strong controls limiting their use for accident investigation purposes only,” said Bill Walpert, National Secretary-Treasurer of the agency.
Head-on Crash
The trains in Los Angeles, both traveling faster than 40 miles an hour, collided after the Metrolink engineer missed signals telling him to stop to let the freight train pass, the board has said. The engineer, Robert Sanchez, was sending text messages as recently as 22 seconds before the crash to a rail enthusiast he was planning to let take the controls of the train later that day, the NTSB investigation found.
Many trains, including the Union Pacific locomotive in this crash, have outward-facing cameras that capture footage in front of the train.
“I have no issue with” cameras inside the cabs, Larry Breeden, Union Pacific’s general manager of operating procedures, said at the hearing yesterday.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which regulates rail safety, is looking at requiring voice recorders in locomotives and has not considered cameras, agency spokesman Warren Flatau said.
Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Patti Reilly didn’t respond to a request for comment.