(The Associated Press circulated the following article on January 9.)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — More than half the miles of railroad tracks in South Carolina do not have an electronic system to warn oncoming trains that there is danger ahead.
An analysis by The (Columbia) State newspaper showed that 1,100 miles of the state’s 2,000 miles of track are in “dark territory.”
The tracks that were the site of last year’s fatal train crash in Graniteville did not have the electronic warning system that experts say could have alerted operators that the switch was in the wrong position.
Instead, the train crashed into parked railroad cars, releasing toxic chlorine gas that killed nine people, including engineer Christopher Seeling of West Columbia.
Seeling’s father said he doesn’t understand why railroad company officials and federal regulators say it’s too expensive to put the electronic warning systems in the state’s dark territories.
“When you walk up to the grave site and look at the marker, there’s no money in the world that can replace your son,” Steve Seeling said.
A former head of the Federal Railroad Administration’s office of safety said it is too expensive to put the systems in all areas. But George Gavalla said the agency could mandate the warning systems for some sections of track depending on the traffic, the type of material being transported and the number of people living nearby.
“Thirty years ago, some communities were very small or nonexistent,” said Gavalla, who now works for a private railroad-consulting firm hired by lawyers representing families of victims and survivors of the Graniteville crash. “There’s a lot more encroachment on railroad rights of way.”
According to the newspaper’s analysis, there are about 100 S.C. towns with populations of less than 15,000 along the track with no signals. The tracks are owned by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Several lines without warning systems run past military installations.
“Federal law and regulation have always recognized that trains could safely operate on nonsignaled track,” Norfolk Southern officials said in a written statement. “It is neither fair nor correct to suggest or imply that the operations of the rail industry, and Norfolk Southern in particular, are unsafe as they currently exist.
“The occurrence of an accident, even one with the tragic consequences of Graniteville, does not prove otherwise.”
Another accident in September 2004, in the Spartanburg County town of Pacolet, was the result of a “switch previously run through.”
Two people were injured when three engines and 23 cars derailed. The train was hauling four cars carrying an unspecified hazardous material. It was unclear whether any of those cars released any dangerous chemicals.
Gus Demott, chairman of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen’s Southeast General Committee, said the official cause given by Norfolk Southern typically means an earlier train safely ran through a misaligned switch but damaged it enough for the next train to derail.
The derailment might have been averted with a warning system, Demott said.
Since January 2000, the two railroad companies had 50 freight train crashes in South Carolina – not including the Graniteville crash.
Two-thirds of those occurred in areas without electronic signals.
Those crashes resulted in 14 injuries, the derailment of nearly 250 rail cars and engines, and $8 million in damage to equipment and track.
Phil Napier, the Graniteville-Vaucluse-Warrenville volunteer fire chief who rushed into the chlorine cloud without protection after the Jan. 6, 2005, crash, said railroads should have “some type of safety device” at manual switches.
“They killed nine people because of a mistake,” he said. “We want to prevent this from happening anywhere else.”
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that railroads install warning devices, such as a strobe light, at manual switches to alert crews to problems.
But those aren’t considered full-fledged warning systems because they cannot detect other rail problems, such as a broken rail.
Only the Federal Railroad Administration can order the companies to install the devices, and that agency has no plans to do that.
“You wouldn’t put a traffic light in a rural community when there’s a very low volume of traffic,” said Steven Kulm, the agency’s chief spokesman.
In 1999, the Federal Railroad Administration estimated that requiring the nation’s major railroads to install a warning system, known as Positive Train Control, would cost $1.2 billion to $7.8 billion over 20 years.
The agency estimated benefits for that period would range from $500 million to $850 million.
“In light of the cost/benefit numbers, an immediate regulatory mandate for [Positive Train Control] could not be currently justified,” the agency said.
The agency had similar conclusions in 1994, 2000 and 2004 reports to Congress.
Kulm said his agency has taken steps since Graniteville to improve rail safety. In October, for example, the agency gave railroads 30 days to improve communication between dispatchers and crews using manual switches.